


proof of life

by Addie_D_123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Bloodplay, Blow Jobs, Codependency, Frottage, Gore, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Mental Instability, Painplay, Self-Harm, Violence, Weecest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3765628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Addie_D_123/pseuds/Addie_D_123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With a tired huff of a sigh John shuffles back into the house and back to the bottle. Sam understands, he prefers it actually. Dean has always been his responsibility.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. same blood

“Sam, your brother is missing.”

Sam lifts his heavy head from the book he had been scouring. Squinting in the first light of the day, reading the same paragraph over and over but absorbing nothing.

“What?” He grinds the heels of his hands to his eyes and blinks blearily.

“Dean is gone… I’m sorry, am I boring you?” His father’s tone is harsh as Sam tries to stifle another yawn.

“Dad, I’m sure he’s just out in the yard.”

That’s the place he usually finds him. Be it first thing in the morning, before dinner, or in the middle of the night; wedged into the hollow trunk of the big dead oak tree in their backyard, the one they never got around to cutting down. It was the place he went he felt he needed to be punished. Curled into himself and pretending to be somewhere else.

Anywhere but here.

“You don’t think that’d be the first place I checked? C’mon, Sam, get up before I get you up.”

Sam was moving before he finished his sentence. Dean wasn’t in his tree. Dean was missing.

Not bothering to put on shoes, he bursts through the screen door in nothing but boxers and a thin white undershirt. He pauses momentarily as his father calls after him, but doesn't turn around.

“It’s a lot easier in the car, maybe we should-“

But Sam just waves him off. The last person Dean needs to see right now is Dad.

And then it hits him.

“It’s fine, I think I know where he is.”

_Please, Dean, don’t be in the river. Just don’t._

With a tired huff of a sigh John shuffles back into the house and back to the bottle. Sam understands, he prefers it, actually. Dean has always been his responsibility.

Racing past the empty tree, he glances back at it, just in case. Hops the fence at the end of yard and onto their back lot, slipping in the early morning dew. Landing hard on his ass he catches his breath, looks down at his bare feet stained grass green and muddy before pushing himself back up and taking off again. When he reaches the tree line he can already hear the water. To call it a river was generous. It was more of a creek, running shallow over rocks and sand, twisting its way through the forest at the end of the property line.

He’s already calling Dean’s name as he breaks through the trees and snagging bushes, and stops abruptly when he sees him there, sitting in the middle of the stream, his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on his hands almost casually. Dean’s shirtless, wearing only his threadbare jeans, soaked through with ice cold water.

“Dean?”

At the sound of his name Dean turns his head, and a bright smile breaks across his face.

“Heya, Sammy. Was wondering when you’d get here.”

Sam approaches carefully, the sharp rocks and broken shells cutting at his soles. He stops where the water meets the shore and crosses his arms over his skinny chest.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t know that I was meeting you here. I guess I forgot?” he lies, but Dean’s smile just gets wider.

“No problem, kiddo.” He turns his head back to front, staring into the distance at something Sam can’t see.

“Hey, Dean, maybe you should come outta the water now. I was just gonna make some breakfast, some grilled cheese and egg sandwiches. And I won't forget to leave the yolks all runny this time, so maybe you can come help or…” he trails off. Dean isn’t listening.

“I was gonna go fishing, but I forgot the poles. Stupid right? So then I thought I could try and catch ‘em with my hands. But I think they’re hiding. Gotta get up early when the fish are still sleeping like Uncle Bobby says. Right, Sam?”

Sam takes a few tentative steps towards his brother, the water so icy it stings where it licks at his ankles. As he gets closer he can make out the stark paleness of his brother’s chest, blue veins snaking down his arms, his lips lavender with the cold.

_Like a corpse._

Sam’s stomach flips over.

“Come _on_. Dean, I’m starving. Let’s go.” He tries his best whiny little brother voice but it’s wracked with shivers as his whole body shakes. He reaches out a hand but Dean makes no move to take it. Sam takes a few jerky steps until he crosses his line of vision, and Dean comes back to himself. Blinks rapidly and the fog lifts. And he grins up at him.

“Hey, Sammy.”

Sam smiles back, the burn of tears behind his eyes. Wordlessly, he walks around behind Dean and hooks his arms under Dean’s, hauls him up. Dean stumbles a bit, curses under his breath.

“Ow, fuck. Pins and needles.”

Sam drapes his brother’s arm over his shoulder and walks him to shore. His skin is cold and discolored, the hand he grasps onto stiff and pruney.

_Like he’s already dead._  

Sam walks faster, practically drags him the whole way. Coming in the back door, they find Dad still at the kitchen table, his big hands wrapped around a mug that Sam doubts will contain coffee. He narrows eyes at his boys as they bang in.

“You can’t just run off like that… Scared the living hell outta me.”

Sam isn’t sure which of them he’s talking to.

Dean shrugs Sam off of him and takes an unsteady step forward, looking as drunk as their father sounds.

“What, are you playing ‘Dad’ today? Fuck if you care where I am, and anyway, I’m almost twenty years old. Not a kid anymore.”

His knees almost buckle and as Sam reaches to catch him, Dean swats at his hands.

“And you, with the grabby hands, get off.”

He stomps past his father and towards the stairs, muttering under his breath as he passes: “Going to my room.”

Sam chases after him, nods to his father, who answers by slowly dropping his head to the table. Follows the trail of puddles Dean leaves behind like breadcrumbs.

Dean’s room is actually their room, and their room is actually the attic. It had been a major selling point when they originally bought the house. That and its foreclosure status, which made it even cheaper than renting. A wide open space, hastily refurbished into a bedroom with plywood over insulation and throw rugs covering rough, splintered floors. The roof leaks at one end into a bucket that sometimes has to be emptied twice a night, and it’s drafty in winter but they didn’t mind. Because Dean doesn’t like small spaces.

Halfway up the stairs, Dean has his pants undone and they hit the floor with a wet _plop_ as soon as he reaches the top. Nothing underneath, he walks naked to the window by their bed and looks out dreamily. Sam comes up behind him to gently place a hand at the small of his back, afraid to spook him.

“Dean, you really need to get in bed, under the covers. You gotta get warm.”

Dean complies automatically, snagging Sam’s hand as he goes. “Stay with me?”

_Always._

Sam nods and strips in silence, slipping in behind his brother who immediately presses cold toes to the front of his shins. Sam winces and wraps his arms around him, squeezes him to his chest. Dean’s wet hair soaks the pillow and Sam pushes his fingers through it, wrings out excess water. Dean is still bigger than him, broader, but Sam is catching up to him in height, which is the cause of his glee and Dean’s great displeasure.

_You’re my little brother Sam. Little. Best stay that way._

“Jesus, Dean, your feet are cold.”

There is a moment of contented silence and Dean squirms even closer into his embrace, fitting his body to his brother’s like two parts of a whole. Sam sighs and pushes his face into the crook of Dean’s neck.

“I’m sorry, Sam.” Dean’s chest hitches and his shivers from cold turn to body shaking gasps.

“Sorry for what, Dean?”

Dean inhales sharply and slips one foot between Sam’s ankles. In his exhale he mutters confessions: “Sorry I’m… this way. Sorry about how I am.”

And the two fall asleep to Dean’s muffled sobs and Sam’s soothing, hushed forgiveness.

 

 

Sam wakes up to an empty bed. There is a clattering downstairs and the faint smell of burning grease. He sits up so quickly his head spins, the fading daylight giving the room an orange glow. He descends the stairs slowly and makes his way to the kitchen. He finds no sign of John.

“Hungry?”

Dean is happily frying pinkish slices of mystery meat on the stovetop while sipping at a large glass of orange juice. His hair has dried in his sleep and sticks up at odd angles. He wears a faded apron, pale blue with dusty pink roses. One of the few things Mom had left behind when she left their father. When she left them.

_Mom left because of me, Sammy. Because I’m not right._

Dean whistles softly along with the radio and gestures with the spatula for Sam to pull up a seat.

“What _is_ that?” Sam scrunches up his nose but his stomach growls eagerly.

“Fried bologna, Sam. We were outta bacon, but this is just as good.”

Toast pops up and Dean bounces over, carefully plucks the pieces out and tosses them on a plate. Hisses and sucks burned fingertips, and Sam just stares, mouth agape. Dean messily constructs a sandwich with the bologna and a squirt of ketchup and places it in front of Sam at the table.

“Eat up, little brother. Gotta put some meat on those bones.”

And with eyes sparkling in the golden sunset, Dean kisses him. Soft, wet lips press gently against his brother’s slightly parted ones, slips his tongue inside for a tiny taste. Sam lets him do it, paralyzed in a moment too strange and perfect to be real. Dean tastes like sleep and orange juice and something else. Something familiar. Sam splays one big hand across Dean’s chest and pushes gently.

“Dean, what are you drinking?”

“Screwdriver, Sammy! Want one?”

_No. Yes._

Head swimming, lips tingling, he stammers his answer: “No. And you shouldn’t be drinking either, man. You know it makes you all…”

“Awesome? I agree.” Dean laughs, open and free, and takes another big swig. Coughs. “Man, Dad can’t spring for the good stuff, huh? Like fuckin’ paint thinner.”

He glances over at Sam, tilts his chin down and lowers his lashes, coy. Pulls the apron over his head and tosses it to the side. He’s shirtless underneath, as always. Saunters over to Sam and yanks his chair back from the table roughly, slams the drink down next to his plate. The contents splash over the sides of the glass.

“Dean? Dean, where’s Dad?”

Dean swings one leg over his and drops down in his lap. “Dunno, Sam, he wasn’t here when I got up. Anyway, who cares? Got the house all to ourselves.”

Dean takes Sam’s face in his hands tenderly and looks down on him. Smiles and licks his lips. He’s nervous, childlike. A scared little boy, and Sam suddenly feels so much older.

“Sammy, can I? Please?”

Head still reeling, all Sam can do is nod, and Dean leans in. He is careful, presses small, delicate kisses to his lips and his chin and his cheek. Turns his head to the side and considers him with wide eyes and long lashes. Inches their mouths together so slowly Sam wants to scream, then pulls Sam’s bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth and suckles. Sam closes his eyes for fear they will roll back into his head and he tries not to moan. Remembers how his arms work and wraps them around Dean’s back, pulling him closer. Dean chuckles into his mouth, like he couldn’t get away if he wanted to. Sam leans back and pulls his brother flush to his chest, slides a hand up to cradle the back of his head and finally, desperately, kisses back.

Fireworks explode behind his tightly shut lids. Red and gold and green like his brother’s innocent eyes.

Dean’s body is rolling against him and Sam awkwardly pushes his hips up to meet him, messy and hungry and without rhythm. Dean makes little sounds now, pants nonsense into his mouth between kisses. Says his name.

“Sammy. Love you. Let me... take care of you, like you take care of me. Love you. Please let me. Sam.”

Sam’s heart is so full of love, his senses overwhelmed with Dean. His mind tries to catch up with what his body is telling him.

_Dean loves you, wants you too, not alone.       Not alone._

The front door hits the wall like a gunshot, and Sam nearly bites off Dean’s tongue. Dean pulls back and puts his hand to his mouth. Sam tastes blood.

“Jeez, Sam... Easy tiger.”

He’s still smiling, eyes crinkled with unadulterated joy. His brows suddenly draw together, confused when he feels Sam freeze underneath him, until he looks over his shoulder to the door.

“Hey, Dad.”

He hops off his brother and grabs his glass, takes a sip as he walks over to the stove. Grabs two more pieces of bread and slides them into the toaster.

“Please tell me you grabbed some groceries? We’re living off scraps here.”

He peels another piece of bologna off the pile, slaps it into the frying pan and turns on the burner. Tips the glass to his mouth and takes it all down in a few giant gulps, shuddering as it hits his stomach.

“Hungry?’

John makes his way quickly from the front door, still hanging ajar, clomping heavy boot falls down the hallway, and leans in the doorway of the kitchen. He’s pale, drawn in, like he’s seen a ghost.

“Sam, I need to talk to you.”

“Dad, I-”

“Now.”

Sam rises from the chair slowly, shamefully, not wanting to turn around and reveal his obvious arousal. Dean turns off the stove and trots over to his brother’s side, still oblivious to the chill in the air.

“Alone, Dean. I need to talk to your brother alone.”

The smile drops off his face then and he lifts his chin. Shoulders back, chest forward, raring for a fight.

“Anything you can say to him you can say in front of me.” Dean leans in, hisses, “ _We_ don’t keep secrets like some people.”

His mood has soured so quickly, and Sam already misses the little piece of heaven they just shared.

“Dean, it’s okay, I promise. Can you, um, can you make a few more sandwiches? I’m sure Dad’s gonna be real hungry after. Right?”

John sighs like he’s carrying the weight of the world, and nods. Not completely convinced, Dean retreats back to the stove. As the two of them make it halfway down the hallway to the front door, he’s already whistling again.

They walk outside and John stops him on the front porch with a hand firmly on his shoulder. His fingers dig in.

“I’m not going to even try and understand what I just saw in there, Sam.” He searches his son’s face for an answer, for some guilt, but finds none. “What could you possibly be thinking? You know your brother is, he’s-”

“Special, and smart and amazing and strong. Not that you would know anything about that.”

Sam’s chin is quivering, he clears his throat and chokes up.

John softens a bit. “Sam, this is getting out of hand. His behavior is completely unpredictable and I just think. I just think maybe it’s time to try something else. Son, I just can’t take this anymore.”

Sam rips his father’s hand from his shoulder and step into his space, close enough to spit. “ _You_ can’t take it anymore? Take what? I do everything for Dean. He’s my brother!”

_He’s mine.       Mine._

He shoots a look over to the kitchen and watches Dean stack sandwiches on a plate, thankfully unaware of their conversation.

“I went somewhere today, Sam. A facility. Nearby, two towns over, in Clinton. A place that would be good for Dean.”

“A facility. What, a nut house? Are you serious?”

“Your brother needs twenty-four hour surveillance.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Sam, you have school, you have other responsibilities.”

“Not anymore, fuck school.”

John’s face falls, tries to reach out to Sam but he backs away.

“Sam, I know you try to do what’s best for him. Try and make him happy no matter what but, Sam-”   
He looks over at his older son and his growing pile of sandwiches and when he turns back his eyes are glassed over with the beginnings of tears. “He could hurt himself. He could hurt you.”

“He would never hurt me. And he doesn’t hurt himself, not on purpose,” he pleads. “I can look after him, Dad, please, _please_. You can’t send him away.”

John pulls Sam to him and wraps him in his arms. Sam feels so very small in his father’s strong embrace. Smashed up against his body, so much like their old oak tree. Tall and thick and strong, but hollow inside, empty.

“I’m sorry, Sam, but it’s already done. They’ll be here in the morning.”

Sam struggles but his father holds firm, and Sam screams.

“No! You can’t, I won’t let you. They can’t touch him, they can’t have him!”

_Bite. Maim. Kill.       Mine._

When Sam breaks free his chest heaves, draws painful ragged breaths into his body, and they pause in the relative silence.

No more whistling.

They turn to the kitchen. Dean’s gone.

Sam flies out the back door and across the yard, skidding to a stop next to the tree. He finds him there in the dark hollow, swallowed up in its giant gaping mouth. Crouched down and curled up with one arm extended, he rubs his delicate wrist raw along the rough edge of the tree trunk. There’s a sickening squelch as it slides back and forth, over and over, lubricated by his own blood.

_He would never hurt himself._

Sam’s stomach turns as Dean proves him wrong.

He wraps his fingers around his arm to still him, pulls gently until Dean comes to him and collapses against his chest. They lie in the soft grass like that, big brother cradled to little brother’s chest. Breathe together, their hearts synch up, same blood pumping in their veins.

_Same blood, we're the same._

“You were yelling because of me. It’s my fault.”

Sam startles at the words. He sits them up and Dean lies back against his chest in the V of his outstretched legs. Sam pulls his wrist to his face to examine it in the dim light of dusk. The skin is rubbed to ribbons, peeled back, and it bleeds freely, small bits of dirt and tree bark lodged here and there. Sam blows gently on the wound and Dean wriggles.

“Hurts, Sam.”

“Sorry, Dean, I-”

“No, I like it. When it’s you, I like when it hurts.”

More silence. Sam gently picks debris out of his arm and Dean breathes heavily.

“Listen, Dean, nothing is your fault, okay? Dad and I were just having a talk. And we decided that we need to take a trip.”

“Psssh, what, like a vacation? No way Dad is gonna-”

“Not Dad, just us. We need to get outta town for a while.”

Dean turns himself around abruptly and comes nose to nose with Sam. His eyes go wide, scared again.

“Shit, Sam... you sure I didn’t fuck up again? I mean, you’re not mad at me, right? Sam?”

So Sam kisses him again. Gentle, his eyes open, reassures with his tongue and his teeth. Dean sighs a relieved breath against his lips.

“Dean, I’m not mad, not at you. I love you, okay? Not your fault. But we don’t have a lotta time. So were gonna get in the house, I’m gonna clean up your arm and were gonna pack. Got it?”

“Sir, yessir!”

“Not funny, jerk. But, you just have to trust me, okay? You got me, Dean?”

Dean takes Sam’s hands in his and pulls them to their feet.

“Yeah, Sammy, I got you.”

 

 

John is absent when they return, but Sam hears him shuffling through drawers in his bedroom. Probably looking for his hidden stash, so they're safe for now. Sam pulls Dean past the pile of forgotten dinner and into the bathroom, pours peroxide over the wound that fizzles and foams. Wraps the last of their gauze around and around and secures it with a length of surgical tape. Then they scramble up the stairs and into the attic.

Dean cradles his injured arm to his chest, guarding the two duffel bags Sam has packed with all their measly belongings. They sit in silence save for the wind whistling through the old oak’s dead branches that reach up towards their window like skeletal fingers. Sam gets together any savings he has and pockets it, makes lists of what they may need. Plots stealing their father’s credit card for some bus tickets. Anything to get them somewhere else.

_Anywhere but here._

Dean sits and scratches at his bandage, stares at his brother like he’s waiting for permission. For what, Sam doesn’t know.

“Hey, Dean, why’d you do that earlier? I mean, when you kissed me.”

And Dean shrugs his shoulders. “Felt like it.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Why? Don’t we do that?”

“We never have before.”

“Huh.” And he grins like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Well, we should’ve.”

So Sam crawls across the floor and puts his hands on him. Peels off Dean’s jeans, his own shirt, and wriggles his pants over his dirty feet. He chases Dean onto the bed, lays him out naked and unafraid. Drapes himself over his brother, lacing fingers and thighs together, one more first time.

And one more last time, last night on this bed. Their bed.

Dean begs and cries and Sam licks away his tears.

“Love you, Sam. Hurt me. Need you to. Need you. Need you to stay with me.”

_Always._

Sam pins his wrists to the bed, digs his fingernails through the gauze until the blood runs down along the edges, pools on the sheets under his arm. Slides two fingers through the gore until they’re stained, pushes them into Dean’s mouth. Feeds him to himself. Bites at his clavicle, his neck, the edge where ribs stick out from his sunken-in belly. Rust and sweat and bone.

Dean writhes and pants.

“More, Sammy, _please_.”

_All of me in all of you._

Sam grinds their bodies together until his arms tremble and threaten to collapse. Until Dean has seized up and released between them and Sam almost comes from the idea of it. From the slip slide of it between them, and the filthy sounds that come from his brother’s mouth.

Dean’s eyes glitter mischievously, he bites his bottom lip and whispers in Sam's ear: “Dad’s gonna know.”

And Sam comes.

Dean’s pale chest is painted pink by the time they’re done, his chin covered in dried blood like a feral animal.

_Same blood._

They will leave the old version of themselves in this house. Up in this attic to rot, the corpse of an old life. No longer two souls, they have become one in this ruined bed of their own making.

Dean’s skin is flushed and their hearts are pounding. Blood and spit and come covering them both like proof of life. They’re almost free. They are both alive.

_Alive.       Alive._

 

 

 


	2. a whole new world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s a whole new world, Sammy.” His smile lights up his face, lights up Sam’s whole universe. “And it’s ours for the taking.”

“Shit, that’s cold.”

Sam wipes at Dean’s mouth with a wash rag, hastily tries to remove the worst of the evidence. The dried blood is stubborn to come off and the mess on his chest even worse.

“Here, gimme, let me do it.” Dean takes the rag and scrubs at his own skin until it’s pink. “Still don’t get why we couldn’t just grab a quick shower.”

Sam snorts incredulously. “Do you _really_ wanna wake Dad up? Right _now_?” His whisper sounds too loud in the tiny bathroom. He opens the mirrored cabinet and curses. “Shit, we’re out of gauze.”

He turns to Dean and watches him throw the soiled rag into the bathtub, smirking.

“Eh, I’ll survive, Sammy. We’ll pick some up at the first stop.”

As they shuffle out of the room, Sam turns towards their bags laying by the front door. Dean stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Really, Sam, not even gonna leave the old man a note?”

Sam faces his brother, takes in his expression. He wears that plastered-on smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Dean is guilty.

“Yeah, sure. Of course. Just, gimme a second?”

Dean creeps backwards down the hall, keeps his eyes on Sam until he reaches the door, then spins around and starts to dig through his duffel. Gives his brother the illusion of privacy.

Sam grabs the notepad stuck to the side of the fridge, carefully pulls a sheet from the middle of the pad, leaving the first one intact as they always do. On it, an old grocery list in their mother’s handwriting, yellowed around the edges. They don’t talk about it, they just leave it there.

He takes a deep breath and rubs a clammy palm over his face, tries to find the right words, and puts pen to paper.

   

               Dad,

    Everything is going to be okay. Dean and I are taking

    a little trip. I’ll keep him safe. I’ll call once we’ve

    settled in somewhere. Please don’t hate me.

        Sam

 

Sam places the note in the middle of the kitchen table under the cow-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and tiptoes quickly to his brother. He looks up the stairs, says a silent goodbye, and they’re gone.

 

“Guess we should’ve had a scrap of a fuckin’ plan when we took off, huh?” Dean snarks, bent over a road map of the US, squints in the sickly flourescent light of the bus station. Sam stands across from him and bites at his nails. Glances up at Dean, who lifts his head with a smirk before resting his chin in his hand, thoughtful. Dean’s mood has been thankfully upbeat, almost obnoxiously so since they left the house, so Sam is waiting for the inevitable crash.

He pictures John, picking fragments of broken plates off the floor after Dean’s eighteenth birthday dinner. It had been going so well, all smiles and easy laughter, until it wasn’t.

Sam had pleaded with his father to let Dean cut the cake.

“It’s _his_ cake, Dad.”

But John had just held out his hand for the knife until Sam handed it over.

“Dean does not handle sharp things, no knives, no scissors.” John cut a large slice onto a plate and slid it in front of his eldest son, speaking about him like he wasn’t even there. “You know this, Sam.”

It was Dad’s rule not his, and Sam almost laughed when Dean sent the entire cake hurtling to the floor, grabbing his piece with one hand and smashing it into his father’s chest as he passed. Chocolate cake smeared across his shirt, John had pinched Sam’s chin between his finger and thumb, locked eyes with him, and wiped the smile right off his face.

“Unpredictable, that’s what your brother is. You can’t count on the good times, it’s all just a waiting game. Because sooner or later we’re gonna lose him again. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Any idea where we’re going?”

Dean’s question snaps him out of his inner thoughts. He sips a steaming cup of burnt coffee, black, grimaces a little every time he swallows. Sam shrugs in response and Dean arches an eyebrow.

“Hey, Sammy, check this out!” Dean pops the top off his coffee and hands it to Sam. As Sam stares back at him quizzically, Dean dips his fingers into the black liquid and flicks them at the map, a spray of wet brown. He wipes his hand on the leg of his jeans and leans in, nods as he points to the largest wet spot on the map.

“Easy. We’re going to…” squints at the tiny type, “Bluewater Acres, New Mexico. Huh, sounds nice.”

“Not sure we can get a bus there. Albuquerque, maybe?”

“Done deal. We can always hitch from there anyway.” He puts his cup down on the center of the map and rubs his hands together excitedly. “So, who’s getting the tickets?”

Sam pulls his father’s credit card out of his pocket and holds it gingerly between two fingers like it could bite him. He stares at his brother and shrugs one shoulder, his heart racing with sudden anxiety. Dean snatches it away, and grins.

“Scared, Sam? C’mon, I got this, easy peasy.” Saunters over to the ticket window like he owns the place. Sam watches him from across the room, sees the ticket woman’s scowl as it turns into a smile and soon enough she laughs, utterly charmed by him. Of course she is. Everyone is.

But when Dean turns around the smile drops off his face abruptly. His pace quickens as he makes his way back to their table, nearly jogs by the end and throws an arm over Sam’s shoulder. He leans in close to his face to speak, hot breath pants in his ear.

“It’s a fourteen hour trip.” Their faces are so close, Dean’s eyes dart back and forth, search Sam’s face for a reaction. When there’s none he continues. “Fourteen hours on a bus, Sam. Full of...” he looks around them and shudders theatrically. “Bus people.”

“Dean, you do realize we are ‘bus people’ now, right? It’ll be fine, just stay close to me.”

“Close, huh? How close… like this?” Dean still shakes with nervous energy when he kisses Sam. His lips vibrate with it. Sam pulls back automatically and Dean looks wounded.

“Hey, sorry man, it’s just. _This_ -” he gestures between them, “this is new. In public and all...” He trails off but Dean recovers quickly. Steps back and spreads his arms, laughs. Completely transformed from his state a moment ago.

“It’s a whole new world, Sammy.” His smile lights up his face, lights up Sam’s whole universe. “And it’s ours for the taking.”

 

Their bus arrives fifteen minutes later and not a moment too soon. Dean’s cool air of nonchalance starts to burn off like fog in the heat of the day, and Sam can’t get him to sit still. After their bags are safely stowed under the bus, Dean nearly knocks over a young mother and her child as he rushes to board. Takes a seat as close to the back of the bus as possible, pulls Sam in after him as if he’s going to try and get away. When the bus pulls away from the station he grabs Sam’s hand and squeezes until his fingers go white.

The gears shift and they're moving, the grumble of the engine almost soothing, and Sam feels his eyelids grow heavier by the second. He lets his eyes close, just for a minute he thinks, and he’s out like a light.

A sudden bump in the road causes his head to nod forward and he gasps at the sudden swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach, like falling. His heart pounds, not knowing how long he was asleep, and he reaches out to curl a hand over Dean’s thigh. When he looks over at him Dean’s facing out the window, but Sam can see in the reflection of the glass that his eyes are closed tight. Sam squeezes his thigh lightly, and leans in close to his ear, voice low.

“Dean… you okay?” No response. He puts the hand on his shoulder, shakes him a little.  “Dean, what’s wrong?”

A woman behind him cackles shrilly and he jumps, Dean slaps his hands over his ears and leans forward, curls in. The baby cradled in her mother’s arms beside them is a ticking time bomb. It begins to whimper and Sam cringes.  He sees Dean’s lips move but he can’t hear so he reaches out, pinches Dean's chin between his finger and thumb, and turns his face to him.

_It’s only a matter of time._

His eyes still closed, Dean mutters something he can’t make out.

“Dean, what is it? _Please_. Dean, look at me.” And like he has spoken the magic words, Dean opens his eyes. Blinks owlishly at him for a moment and hiccups.

“It’s too much, Sammy, too much.”

His eyes are wild, a thin, mossy green ring around dilated pupils. Sam reaches out and tries to slide his hands under Dean’s but they won’t budge. He places his hands on top of his brother’s and with gentle pressure, lowers Dean’s head into his lap. Keeps his right hand over Dean’s ear and pulls the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt over his left hand. And then slowly, gently, he moves it to cover Dean’s eyes.

Sam counts to himself, down from sixty, watches the swell of Dean’s back and monitors his breathing. He’s made it to twelve before Dean’s asleep. Sam keeps watch, looks past him to the large bus window. The scenery streaks past them, dark and nondescript, their reflections superimposed like ghosts in the night, and Sam looks how he feels, tired and lost.

In the end, they last a lot longer than he thought they would. Three hours and thirty-seven minutes to be exact.

Dean comes to slowly, sits up and looks around, confused. Sleep has creased his face and flattened the hair on one side of his head. Sam reaches over to fix it and Dean slaps his hand away, hard.

“Do not. Touch. Me,” he stage whispers.

The bus is mostly quiet, only the sounds of light snoring and muffled music from headphones, nestled in the bright red dreadlocks of a teenaged girl. Sam rubs the top of his hand and scowls.

“What the shit, Dean? That hurt. What-”

Dean’s body tenses up, his shoulders lift like the hackles of an angry mutt. He punches Sam’s shoulder in the confined space and pants through gritted teeth.

“I need. To get off. The bus.”

“Dean, come on. Let me help you, just-”

“Sam. Now. I have to get off now.”

Without a word Sam grabs his hand, drags him up the aisle, bounces off sleeping passengers and ignores their angry grumbling. When he reaches the bus driver, she speaks before he can get a word out.

“Sir, you need to return to your seat, please.”

“I’m sorry, but… we need to get off the bus.”

She turns in her perch, just enough to look them over. Her eyes linger on their entwined hands for a moment.

“Sorry, son, but I can’t just drop you off in the middle of nowhere. Now, Tulsa is just another-” she looks over at a clipboard hanging off the dash, “thirty or so minutes away. So if you can just take your seat-”

Dean squeezes Sam’s hand and whines.

“My brother, he’s sick, it can’t wait.”

She spares them another look and sighs heavily.

“You know, there’s a bathroom in the back of the bus.”

Sam is silent at that, looks at Dean as he grows increasingly agitated. The color drains from his face, leaves him blanched.

_He’s not that kind of sick._

“Please? We’ll be fine, just-” The bus’s headlights reflect off a sign as it whizzes past: Claymore - Next right. His mouth opens to make another plea when Dean’s hysterical voice cuts him off.

“Let me off this fucking bus! Now!” he shrieks, and a wave of startled gasps swells from the back.  

The driver seems unfazed but slowly applies the brake and as the bus slows, so does Dean’s breathing. She pulls to the shoulder and opens the door without comment. Dean drags Sam down the steps and a few paces away to the grass beyond the shoulder before he shoves him away roughly. Dean drops to his knees, lurches over onto all fours like he’s going to be sick. The driver steps out after them, retrieves their bags and tosses them at Sam’s feet. She looks between the two boys, one crawling in the dirt and one standing with shoulders rolled forward and arms wrapped around him in the chilly night. She holds Sam’s gaze for a moment and nods to herself at what she sees there.

“You take care of that boy.”

_Always been my job._

She climbs back onto the bus and pulls away. The tires spray gravel that pelts the front of Sam’s jeans, each piece needles like a bee sting.  

And just like that they’re alone in the dark night. The moon overheard shines down on them like a spotlight, illuminates the side of the road where they have stranded themselves, the middle of nowhere. Next stop, Claymore, Oklahoma.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Clear vision. New opportunities.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam slides his feet through wet grass, the canvas of his sneakers darkening with every stride. Dean clomps alongside him, kicking gravel out with every third step. A duffel bag slung over each shoulder, his face is pointed up at the stars. The crunch of Dean’s footfalls seem louder in the heavy silence, no other noise around them save the skittering of tiny stones across Sam’s path. It makes his jaw clench.

 

Sam slides his feet through wet grass, the canvas of his sneakers darkening with every stride. Dean clomps alongside him, kicking gravel out with every third step. A duffel bag slung over each shoulder, his face is pointed up at the stars. The crunch of Dean’s footfalls seem louder in the heavy silence, no other noise around them save the skittering of tiny stones across Sam’s path. It makes his jaw clench.

“Stop. Fucking. Kicking. Rocks at me,” Sam manages through his gritted teeth.

“My apologies, _princess_.”

The insult doesn’t have its usual air of playfulness. Dean lurches over and shoulder checks Sam, swinging one heavy bag into his hip, causing Sam to stumble and lose his footing. When he goes down, his knees take the brunt of the damage, sharp rocks cutting through soft denim and skin. That puts an end to that, and Dean scrambles to pull his brother up, a litany of apologies falling from his lips. Sam pulls away, staggers for a moment before brushing off his knees, his hands. He’s cold, tired, hungry and needs to get these wet shoes off and into some warmth.

Sam walks briskly ahead and Dean jogs to keep up, saddled with the two bags containing all their earthly possessions, and when they reach the next visible road sign, it’s together. They read the large colorful billboard aloud, in unison.

“ _Welcome to Claymore, Oklahoma. Clear vision. New opportunities._ ”

Dean purses his lips and turns to Sam. “Sounds like as good a place as any.”

Neon lights beckon them like an oasis. Straight ahead sits a diner advertising “Fresh Hot Food 24 hours” and attached, a gas station with a happy yellow sign that reads Pump N Pete’s. Dean snickers, reaching up to ruffle Sam’s hair and get his attention. “Pretty sure I saw that porn before, Sammy.”

Set back a little ways from the main drag is a small and ramshackle looking motel with a large neon sign of a log cabin, surrounded by dense trees. It calls out to them.

“Gentlemen.” The man behind the front desk greets them with a mixture of disinterest and disdain as the door swings open. He’s short and slight, with knobby clawed hands and white-blue eyes set deep into his skull. He looks like he’s seen it all, and two teenage boys stumbling through his door in the middle of the night doesn’t even warrant a raised eyebrow.

“We’d like a room, please,” Sam squeaks out, takes a step forward to rest his elbows on the desk, fakes nonchalance.

The front desk troll huffs out a laugh that turns into a lung rattling cough. He clears his throat and continues. “What are ya, twelve? Sorry, kid, you gotta be eighteen to rent-”

“I’m renting the room.” Dean presses close to Sam’s back and puffs out his chest. He’s already pulling out his wallet as the man asks for it, reaches around his brother to hand over his ID. Sam’s eyes follow it as Dean slides it across the counter.

The man looks between the card and Dean’s face, squinting for a moment before tossing it back on the counter between them. Sam feels Dean flinch.

“Room’s sixty-nine ninety-five a night. Cash, or credit?”

 

*

 

“Nice choice on the room by the way. What, is it, like the _infiniti_ room? That’s some deep shit.”

Sam looks up from where he’s struggling with the lock. The single key scratches the dead bolt cover, the keychain boasting Comforts of Home Inn, rattling against the metal. His shaky and flustered state bears a stark contrast to his brother’s cool and collected one. It always works this way, like they balance each other out.

Dean bats at his hands until he surrenders the key with a shrug.

“First time opening a door, kiddo?” Dean asks as he effortlessly turns the key and swings the door open, bouncing it off the door jam.

Spilling into the room, Dean swings both duffels on the first bed and makes his way to the bathroom, calling over his shoulder. “You gonna stand there all day, Sam? You’re letting the cold in!”

Sam takes a step back to look to his left: room number seven, and to his right, room number nine. He straightens the marker on their own door and lets his numb legs carry him inside, slamming the door behind him.

Sam immediately kicks his shoes off into the corner and sits down on the edge of the bed next to the bags to peel off wet socks, his toes cold and pruny. He listens to the sounds of Dean washing up in the bathroom. Faucets on, off, on. The tapping of his feet and a faint whistle.

 _Whistle while you work_ , Sam thinks distantly and he falls back on the mattress, so tired he’s delirious.

Dean exits the bathroom looking a little lighter, smirks over at Sam when he finds him giggling.

“Whoa, Sam, did you finally crack?” He stands naked, his soggy clothes probably in a pile on the bathroom floor. Sam cranes his neck up to look at him, and sighs. Dean walks toward him, shoulders thrown back, scratching idly at his stomach. His body lean, all clean lines and pale skin, but still soft around the edges. Dean is completely unashamed, and completely beautiful. Sam almost drools and he wipes at the side of his mouth with the back of his hand.

_Jeez, Sam...easy tiger._

“Dean, can you at least pick up after yourself?” Sam recovers, props himself on one elbow, watching Dean dig around his bag for a change of clothes. His bandaged wrist catches Sam’s eye, and he reaches towards it.

“Dean, we gotta remember to pick up supplies soon, that-”

When Sam’s fingers make contact with his arm, Dean flinches, pulls back so violently that he flings the t shirt he had in his hand to the floor. When he looks up he’s wide eyed and a little green.

“Dean, what it is? Does it hurt?”

Dean shakes his head, so slight it’s almost imperceptible, and takes a step back, the handle to his bag clenched with white knuckles. “No, uh, arm’s fine. It’s just.” Another step back and he pulls the bag off that bed while he retreats to the other. He sits, pulls the duffle into his lap.

“It’s just, I don’t feel like being touched.” He looks down, busying himself with going through his meager belongings, the next words spoken softly to his socks. “Sorry.”

It hurts Sam, knocks the breath out of him like a punch to the sternum, but he just smiles weakly. “It’s okay, really.”

Dean doesn’t want Sam to touch him. _Sam._ This is new.

After a few more minutes of quiet Sam clears his throat and Dean raises his head, eyes tired.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna go grab some food from that all night diner. You should probably just stay here. Rest up?”

Dean nods slowly, like he’s trying to decipher and Sam’s speaking in tongues.

“Okay, so, your regular, right?”

Dean’s facing him, eyes on him but he’s looking through him, so Sam tries another tactic. “So, that’s a green salad, light dressing on the side?”

It works. Dean’s face breaks into a smile, his eyes clear.

“That sounds like the food _my_ food eats. Gimme a cheeseburger, fries, chocolate malt. _Malt_ , Sam, not shake.”

“Sir, yessir!” Sam salutes him and immediately regrets it. It was one of their longest running jokes. But it’s not funny to make fun of Dad now that he’s not here. Sam turns tail and hurries to the door, and as he closes it behind him he almost thinks he hears Dean’s voice choke out a single sad plea.

_Dad._

The diner is sketchy, but homey. It’s fairly quiet, just the regulars and a road weary family seated at a booth in the back. The mother is endlessly tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears while she tries to keep her two young sons from stealing off each other’s plates. The dad watches, sipping his coffee and looking tired, but happy. Sam looks away when the pain in his chest becomes too acute to ignore. He gathers Dean’s food and a chicken caesar wrap for himself, and backs through the glass doors from the warmly lit diner into the cool dark night.

The food doesn’t look half bad and his stomach starts to rumble. The fries even smell good enough for Sam to steal one on the walk back to the room.

Even balancing a bag of greasy food and a chocolate malt, Sam easily turns key to lock this time and opens the door. Kicking it closed behind him, he is immediately overwhelmed with heat. Sweat pricks his forehead instantaneously and he curses, placing their dinner and the sweaty paper cup on the tiny table next to the door.

No sign of Dean.

Sam wipes his hands on his jeans, strips off his hoodie and tears into the bag.

“Dean, food’s here!” he calls towards to the closed bathroom door. After setting their food out in front of their respective chairs at the table, he sips at Dean’s malt, wait no, shake. He sighs. Dean’s gonna be pissed.

“Dean, bad news. Apparently these people don’t know the difference between a shake and a malt.”

The radiator is so hot the air ripples above it like a mirage, and Sam takes another sip. It’s still pretty good. The cold slides down his throat and hits his empty stomach with a chill.

Dean is still not answering him

He pulls the side of his bottom lip into his mouth and chews. “Dean? What, are you taking a shit?”

He takes a few tentative steps towards the bathroom. Silence. He quickens his pace to the door, stumbles over his own feet and nearly falls face first into it. He knocks furiously.

“Dean, you okay?”

He gets an answer then, muffled through the wood, unintelligible. Then nothing. He tries the knob but it’s locked, and in a moment of adrenaline fueled focus he pulls out his wallet. Finds Dad’s credit card and slides it between the door and the jam, wriggles it down until he hears a _click_ , and throws the door open. He can hear Dean, but he can’t see him. The shower curtain is drawn, and it flutters in and out like it’s breathing. Sam pulls it back with one trembling hand.

Dean is seated in the far corner of the bathtub, his knees pulled to his chest and his face pressed between them. He’s wearing Sam’s sweatpants that are too short on him and one sock, like that’s as far as he got before he was interrupted. And he’s crying.

“Dean, Dean, what happened?” Sam’s hand reaches towards him but hangs awkwardly in the air, afraid to touch. Dean looks up at him, face red and wet and open like a child’s. Sam aches to wrap his arms around him, and Dean sniffs softly.

“Someone came to the door, Sam. They were trying to get in. They kept knocking. I told them to go away but they just kept saying something. Saying someone’s name. They wouldn’t leave.”

Sam scowls, curses the maid service until he realizes the time. Couldn’t be, or maybe- “Dean, it was probably just some drunk asshole or the maid, right?”

Dean narrows his eyes, wipes his nose with the back of his arm. “Right, Sam, the _midnight maid service_.” And to both of their surprise, Dean chuckles at that. “Think I saw _that_ porn before, too.”

Sam forces a smile and climbs into the tub, as far away from his brother as he can. He pulls off his shoes and throws them on the floor, his socks follow. Copies Dean’s pose and stares down at their feet pointed towards other. So similar, Dean’s toes a little longer, more elegant. Even Dean’s feet are pretty, he muses, and sighs.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t here, I’m sorry I left you, man. I, I just. You needed to eat and-”

Dean holds a hand up to stop him, turns himself around in the cramped space and scoots back, wedges himself between Sam’s legs and against his chest. Head resting comfortably over Sam’s heart, he speaks.

“You know these motel beds, they don’t have a space underneath, it’s blocked off. I forgot about that, stupid, right?” He picks at the bloody tears in Sam’s jeans. When his nail roots out a lodged piece of gravel from Sam’s left knee, he hisses in pain. “That’s where I looked first, you know, to hide.”

He moves so his back is flush to Sam’s chest, grabs Sam’s right hand in his and weaves their fingers together, placing their joined hands low on his stomach.

“That’s so people can’t leave their shit behind, like a loose sock or somethin’.” The bandages around Dean’s wrist, now greyish and dirty, tickle the inside of Sam’s arm. “Or maybe it’s so they can’t hide dead bodies there.”

Dean slides his hand out from under his brother’s so Sam is touching his skin, and then places his back on top. Pushes it gently, inches their hands down slowly, slipping them under the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Nowhere to hide. Ain’t no monsters under _our_ bed, Sammy.”

Sam watches, frozen, his eyes glued to the tented fabric of Dean’s borrowed pants. Sam’s dick is hard in kind, trapped between them. Confined to his jeans, his every breath is torture, so he tries not to breathe. But Dean knows, can feel him pressed into his back, and when he turns his head to speak, Sam can see him smirking in profile.

“Sam, I’m sorry about before,” Dean coos, voice a low rasp, “when I said you couldn’t touch me. Didn’t mean it, not when it’s you.”

Dean holds Sam’s hand in his, drags it down and wraps their hands around himself, squeezing lightly. “Always want you to touch me, _always_ you.”

He tightens their fingers around his erection, hot and hard like silk over steel. Sam’s stomach flips over and his heart races, almost jumps out of his chest when Dean slots his fingers alongside Sam’s and starts to move.

“Love you, Sammy. Love you...my baby brother. You always...keep me safe...don’t you?” Dean pants soft little breaths between his words, pulls Sam’s hand out of his pants momentarily, spits into it messily and then dives back in. The wet, slick sounds are slightly muffled by the fabric but Sam still whines.

“I’m gonna take care of you...baby boy. Wanna, wanna be so _good_ for you. I know, I know how. I’ll show you.”

His strokes much faster now, short and stunted in the confined space. His breathing more erratic, hips swaying back and forward, grinding into Sam’s lap, and Sam can’t hold on for long.

“Just tell me. Tell me what you want. Anything, _anything_ for you, baby.”

One bare foot planted on the bottom of the tub, Dean’s socked foot slips out in front of him as his hips jerk up and down. Sam closes his eyes and focuses on the heat under his hand, flesh so full, engorged with his brother’s blood.

_Same blood._

It’s so warm and wet and Sam can _smell_ him. His chest feels so full he wants to cry, but he just squeezes harder and hears Dean’s breath stutter.

“My boy. My _Sammy_.” Dean stiffens at that last word, all over like rigor mortis, and Sam just jerks faster as Dean comes over his hand, warm and thick, with Sam’s name on his lips like a prayer. Sam can only breathe out _Dean_ in response and he’s falling right behind him, almost too painful to be good, but still. _Still_. Sam almost blacks out.

 

*

 

Sam doesn’t know how much time has passed when he feels Dean pull their hands to his chest, clutching Sam’s right one in both of his. He sucks one of Sam’s chew-ragged fingers into his mouth to the first knuckle and suckles it clean. Sam feels himself moan more than he hears it, his head still pounding along with his heartbeat. As he speaks, a shudder wracks his body, stutters his words.

“Hey, D-Dean?”

“Yeah, Sam?”

“You okay?”

There’s a pause, Dean sucks a deep breath in through his nose and out his mouth, sliding down to rest his head over Sam’s still racing heart again.

“Just peachy, Sammy-boy.”

Sam doesn’t mean to fall asleep there. He fights to stay awake, wants to strip off his jeans or wash them both up. Has to care for Dean’s injured arm or at least get him to eat. But he’s just so _tired_.

The two boys drift off together there, as comfortable as any bed they ever shared, their forgotten dinner growing cold on the tiny motel table and a mostly melted shake swimming in a tiny pool of condensation.

 

 


	4. count the seconds between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he opens his eyes, all Sam can see are stars.

When he opens his eyes, all Sam can see are stars. The night sky is clear, midnight blue, with millions of sparkling lights swirling over his head. He sits up and finds himself in the center of a field, a clearing surrounded by a wall of tall dark trees. The trees seem to grow larger as he follows their trunks up up up as they loom ominously overhead, dwarfing him. The damp grass underneath him leaches through his boxers, spreads goosebumps across his chilled thighs and up his spine. He stands slowly, walks towards the line of trees when he hears a voice from far away. Someone is calling his name: _Sam. Sam! Sammy!_

_Dean._

His feet carry him faster towards the source of the sound, somewhere beyond the trees. Dean’s voice travels on a cold breeze that winds around the trees and tugs him forward and as the sound gets louder, he breaks into a run. An overturned tree trunk appears suddenly in the dark and his feet tangle, the momentum sending him flying through the air at an impossible speed. And when he finally lands, hard, he is on a beach. The shoreline is made up of small smooth stones in a thousand shades of green, and his brain jumpstarts.

_Dean._

He crawls forward, trying to reach the water, needing to reach the water, and when his fingertips breach the surface, Dean speaks again, teasing.

“Be careful, Sammy. You’ll catch your death.”

Dean is standing in the middle of the lake, waist deep in dark water with a surface like glass. He is still, a marble statue shining pale and lovely in the moonlight.

Sam stands, his knees popping painfully in protest and he edges forward, reaching out to him.

“Dean, come on. Time to go. Dad’s waiting on us.”

Dean smiles wide, his teeth reflecting the blue light like rows of jagged mirror shards. “Naw, Sam. He isn’t.”

Dean takes a step back and Sam steps forward into the frigid water. The hairs stand up on the back of his neck and he shivers.

“Please, Dean. I don’t know what to do.”

Dean just shakes his head, smiles knowingly. “You do, Sam, it’ll come to you. Always waitin’ on my little brother. Now c’mon, Sam.”

Dean’s body is slowly sinking, alabaster skin being swallowed by black water. “You gotta come with me. You _have_ to. But we gotta go down, down, down.” And his head disappears under the surface, barely a ripple as evidence he had been there at all.

Sam runs towards him, the water thick and viscous, sucking at his legs like quicksand. As hard as he pumps his legs, he moves in slow motion. When he finally reaches the spot where Dean disappeared, he dives without hesitation and swims down as best he can. He opens his eyes and sees nothing, black. Opens his mouth to scream but it fills, water pushes its way down his throat and it _burns_. Sam tries to cough but he can’t and it’s cold, so cold and wet. Turned around in the crushing void, he lashes out in all directions until his leg connects with something, and that _something_ grabs onto his ankle. Pulls him, tugs him down. Sam tries to fight but he just sinks deeper. He closes his eyes, wills himself to breathe, and a soft voice speaks to him, carried up in bubbles from beneath.

_You can do it, Sam, just breathe. I want you to stay with me, you just gotta open up and let it in. But first thing, Sam, you gotta rise. Rise and shine. Rise and shine, Sammy!_

Sam wakes with a gasp and immediately chokes on the cold water splashing into his mouth. His leg is yanked and he slides down further onto his back, taking full force of the stream to the face. He opens his eyes, attempts to cover them with one hand and wipes away the sting with the other. Kicks out with both legs until his ankle is dropped, the shower curtain ripped back, water cascading across the bathroom floor. He can just make out the outline of his own body in the dark bathroom, pants wet and clinging to him like a second heavy skin. And to his right, Dean. Bent over, face scrunched up and mouth open, body shaking with silent laughter. The shower is ice cold, there’s water up his nose and Sam is going to _kill_ him.

“You asshole!” Sam sputters, scrambles back away from the deluge, tries to take a deep breath and starts coughing all over again.

“Had to clean you up, Sammy.” Dean gets himself under control and sighs to catch his breath. He leans over Sam, water spattering his right shoulder, face inches from Sam’s, and whispers. “You made a mess of yourself, little brother.”

He stands and slowly backs himself out of the room. Sam can hear the tv switch on, a hiss and electric whine. Dean shouts through the door that he left open. “And don’t use up all the hot water, either! My turn’s next and I’m gettin’ ripe!”

Sam curses, unbuttons his jeans and struggles to pull the sopping fabric down his long legs, pulls the filmy shirt clinging to his back over his head and drops both on the tiled floor. He kneels, reaches forward and twists the tap, changes the temperature to something more tolerable, and sighs. Drops his head down, watches the water push his hair into a curtain, shielding his face from the glow of the television.

“Dean. Dean! Can you at least turn on the light?”

No answer.

Grumbling, Sam curls his fingers over the tub and hoists himself up, his legs half asleep and pinching. He pulls what remains of the curtain closed and grasps blindly for soap, shampoo, anything. Nothing. Sam scrunches his eyes tight, scrubs at himself with only the aid of lukewarm water and his ragged fingernails until his skin is striped in pink welts. Turns the faucet off with much more force than necessary and pulls back the curtain. Squints in the dim light to find two towels folded on the back of the toilet, and he grins victoriously.

_Just ‘cuz you got girl hair doesn't mean you gotta use both towels, bitch._

Sam takes one to dry his hair, squeezing out excess water, the other to dry his body, and drops both in the large greyish puddle that has formed on the floor. When he steps out of the bathroom he is greeted with an empty room, the door hanging wide open. The fresh smell of rain floats in on a breeze, water filling the potholes of the parking lot in the early morning storm. In the trash next to the door, their dinner from last night peeks over the edge, the melted shake dripping down the side and soaking into the carpet.

His momentary confusion is interrupted when he hears voices approaching. He dives to the nearest bed, cringing as he wraps the filthy comforter around his still damp, naked body. Thinks of their trip to to the Wisconsin Dells when he was eight, Dean’s voice not yet deepened by puberty.

_First rule of staying in a motel, Sam, never use the comforter. They don’t wash them. Strip ‘em off, pile ‘em in the corner, okay? Good boy._

Dean appears in the doorway like magic, silhouetted against the eerie yellow-green sky. His back to Sam, Dean speaks to someone, laughing softly and getting a light musical giggle in return. A slight form leans in toward him, head tilted like Dean’s telling a secret.

_Girl._

When he turns back his arms are stacked full of towels. He takes a few steps inside and kicks the door closed behind him.

“Saw we needed towels and I heard the maid cart, so...” He lifts the towels up as evidence and walks past Sam, who’s mouth is hanging agape, to the bathroom.

“Remember what I told you about touching the comforters in motels, dontcha, Sam?” he throws over his shoulder as he goes to drop off the towels. Of course he remembers.

Sam flings the blanket away and jumps up, immediately going to his bag and digging through it for something to wear. He feels an appraising gaze on his back and whips around, eyes narrowed and breathing hard.

“What the _fuck_ , Dean?” His heart is rabbiting in his chest like it can’t find a rhythm. Can’t ever decide what it wants to do when Dean is around.

Dean’s smile dims. “What, the shower? Come on, Sam, I’m just fuckin’ with you.”

Sam seethes, grits his teeth, but doesn’t speak, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his chest heaving. Dean tries for levity.

“Hey, you wanna be a filthy animal, that’s your business, I just-” he stops abruptly and Sam stomps his foot and growls.

“No! It’s not, well, yeah, that too. But that’s not what I mean.”

Dean raises his eyebrows at him like he’s lost it, and then Sam really does.

“You just _took off_ when I was in the shower. Chatted up the maid and grabbed some towels; you know, _no big deal_.” The words sound stupid as they leave his mouth, dripping with sarcasm, but he can’t stop himself. Dean’s still staring at him like he has two heads.

“It’s really convenient that you can just turn it off and on, huh? Not so worried about who’s out there when there’s a chance of hitting on some desperate motel _trash_!” Sam can feel himself yelling, knows she can probably hear him. Hopes she can.

Dean’s face goes blank for a moment before a tiny spark erupts behind his eyes. A smile spreads across his face, slow like honey but with no warmth.

“Turn _what_ on and off, Sam?” The words are flat, cold.

The words Sam were about to say die in his throat and he swallows, hard. “Forget it, Dean. Just, nothing.”

Sam turns back to his bag, doesn’t hear his brother approach until a hand lands roughly on his shoulder and spins him around.

“No, Sam, _please_. Enlighten me.”

Sam scowls, looks at the floor. Feels small and afraid and entirely too naked for this conversation. A drop of cold water falls from his wet mop of hair and snakes down his spine.

“Nothing. It’s just. Before, you were scared, and I just thought…”

“You just thought I couldn’t manage to go get towels without you holding my hand? Or no, wait wait, I know. You thought, ‘Hey, don’t have to worry about my nut job brother wandering off this time, he’s too scared to even answer the door.’ _Right_?”

Sam freezes. His eyes are stuck to the floor, staring at a piece of gum that’s been ground in, grey from decades of filth, shaped like a lopsided heart.

“Dean. I can’t. It’s just, the mood swings or whatever. I just don’t know when you’re coming or going. You’re just…”

Dean scoffs, a sharp, dismissive sound and shoots back, “Yeah, yeah, and you’re a jealous little bitch. What else ya got?”

He’s not wrong.

The television squeals, pops, and goes black. A moment later Sam hears the rumble of thunder in the distance. He looks up then and finds a strange little smile on Dean’s face, the anger turned into something else, a sort of derisive amusement. There’s something else there, in his eyes. Like disappointment, resignation.

“Well?” Dean asks when Sam just stares at him dumbly, but doesn’t give him a chance to respond. “Sam, you wonder why Dad didn’t cancel the credit card you stole? Why he’s lettin’ us run away on his dime?”   
Dean takes a step away from him, hides a chuckle behind his hand and shakes his head.

“It’s cause he’s fucking _relieved_ , Sam.” Dean’s voice raises several octaves, cracks on his name. “I’m sure he’s so _fucking tickled_ to have me out of his hair, and you know what? That’s fine, because I expect that shit from him, ya know? But you…”

Sam’s chest hurts. He reaches up and covers his heart with his hand, expects to pull it back covered in blood, but there’s nothing. He takes that hand and reaches towards his brother.

“Dean, no wait. I didn’t mean-” He doesn’t know what he means anymore. He gets close enough to get a hand on Dean’s shoulder and feels it tense underneath him. Dean’s skin is furnace hot and slick. He lets his finger trail down his arm to the source of the heat and the realization makes him pull back like he’s been burned. “Dean, you feel okay?”

“Don’t change the subject, Sam. And my wrist is _fine_ , just itches.” And like mentioning it made it itch anew he scratches at it, irritated. Shows no outward sign of discomfort, but Sam sees the muscle in his jaw jump.

“Dean, just let me look at it, clean you up?”

Dean smacks Sam’s hand away. Sucks in a sharp breath of pain, giving himself away.

“You’ve done enough. Got it, Sam? Now _back off_.”

Dean turns and walks to the bathroom, picking at the tape securing the gauze to his arm as he goes. He starts to unwrap it slowly, and as he gets to the end, it sticks. He stops and half turns towards Sam and with barely a pause, he yanks the bandage once, twice, and rips it off. The tearing sound it makes is terrible, wet, and Dean sways on his feet. He rocks back and forth for a few moments, eyes squeezed shut, his bottom lip sucked into his mouth, breathing heavily through his nose. Sam catches a flash of the soiled bandage, stained in shades matching the stormy sky. Red and yellow with a streak of green like lightning, and Sam gags.

When Dean speaks again his voice shakes violently. “And Sam? Put some goddamn clothes on.”

Dean retreats to the bathroom and closes the door, leaving Sam standing naked and nauseous in the stuffy room. Lights like flashbulbs make the orange curtains glow red for a moment and Sam walks over to pull them back for a better view of the tumultuous morning sky. He takes a deep breath and counts the seconds before the thunder rumbles over them.

_Okay, Sam, you ready? Just count the seconds between when you see the lightning and when you hear the thunder. Divide by five, and you know how many miles away it hit. Pretty cool, huh?_

“Fifteen seconds. Three miles,” Sam mumbles to himself as he turns back to his bag. Finds a pair of old boxers and smells them to be sure. Better than nothing. He throws them on, and a t shirt Dean had picked up at Forest View Lounge when they were in Illinois last year. In rainbow bubble letters it boasts, _Home of Large Marge’s Volcano Burger_ , and Dean had fallen in love with the atrocious things.

Sam drags his feet the whole way to the bathroom door, formulating what he can say, how he can make Dean listen to him. How to make him understand that Sam says stupid things, things he doesn’t mean. Sam needs to get his hands on him, needs to fix this. He knocks on the door.

“What, Sam?”

“Can I come in?”

There’s a pause and Sam holds his breath. The knob turns. Dean has his injured arm propped up on the edge of the sink, wrist up. He’s studying it like a puzzle, nothing but a problem to be solved, but it’s obvious to Sam from the doorway that it's serious. The skin around the affected area is as swollen and pink as bubblegum, and the wound itself is a myriad of colors, none of them good. The old bandage is in the trash and Sam retrieves it, his stomach bubbling with anxiety. The dirty cotton shows signs of infection, but what’s worse, several layers of Dean’s skin seem to have come off with it. Sam drops it in disgust and goes back to his brother’s side, lifts the arm to his face, sniffs. Satisfied, he pulls it back under the tap and turns the water lukewarm, reaches for the lone washrag folded next to the sink.

A flash of light catches his eye from the other room and he starts counting.

_1...2...3...4..._

Dean is watching his face carefully, complying automatically, without comment, to every which way Sam pulls him.

_5...6...7..._

Cringes when the water hits his arm but doesn't pull away, and Sam isn’t entirely sure what to do. He knows he has to get the wound clean; remove the infection or it’ll just get worse. Without antibiotics it could spread, Dean could lose his arm. He’s had some experience with this before. When Dean would develop these mystery cuts on his arms and ankles. Sam had been so naive back then. Not anymore. He can just hear Dad now: _Infection is no joke, Sam. Untreated wounds can dirty up the blood. They can kill you._

He’s all alone and he doesn’t know what to do.

_8...9...10..._

The thunder hits and it sounds so much closer. Like it’s catching up to them.

_Ten seconds, two miles. Good job, Sammy. You’re getting it._

He doesn’t realize his hands are even moving until Dean snaps him back to the present with a choked whimper.

“Sam?”

The sound is small, pitiful, and it drags Sam’s eyes down to what he’s doing. The once white rag is now vibrant red where he scrubs at Dean’s arm. Pieces of loose skin, soft and colorless as wet paper, slough off and stick to the sides of the basin. He pulls his hand away, watches the steady drip of dark red hit the surface of the water and dilute, rusty streaks chasing the dead skin down the drain. Sam knows red is good, red is clean, so he smears it around. Rubs it up and down Dean's forearm, dips his fingertips in the gore and paints lines along the edge of the sink like water colors. He turns his head slowly to the side and catches Dean’s eyes, wide and the color of spring grass in morning dew. One tear rolls down his face and over his mouth, clings stubbornly to his bottom lip.

The lightning flashes again and the thunder comes a few short seconds after, flickering the lights in the bathroom.

“Sam?” Dean tries again.

Sam pushes his wrist back under the tap, brings his face in close, picks at the edges with his fingernail, tears off an old scab and Dean whimpers. He’s wriggling from the shoulder back, trying so hard to keep his arm still. He crosses one foot over the other and squeezes his thighs together, slouches forward, rocking back and forth slightly, tears dropping off his chin in rapid succession.

When Sam is sure the wound is free of old tissue and blood, when the white and green and yellow is obliterated and all he can see is red, he sighs with relief. Dean is still just watching him, scared, his pale face contorted with pain.

And something else.

“ _Sam?_ ” he asks, and the third time’s a charm.

Sam turns off the tap, takes a step back and turns Dean by his outstretched arm. Drops of pink water run down to Dean’s elbow and drop onto the tile between them. Still gripping his wrist, Sam holds it out between them, pulls his other hand back, and slaps the raw meat of Dean’s wrist in one sharp motion.

Dean’s shriek is swallowed up in the sound of thunder as it explodes right overhead. The electric light show outside causes the bulbs inside to strobe, makes Dean appear to move in slow motion when he puts his other hand on Sam’s shoulder as if to push him away, but doesn’t.

“Dean, see what happens when you don’t keep your cuts clean? When you don’t let me help you?”

Dean nods, sniffles, and Sam hates how familiar his voice sounds in his own head.

_They can kill you._

“You could have gotten sick.” Sam presses his fingers into the center of the shredded flesh, digs his nails in and watches Dean’s eyes grow bigger, brighter as if lit up from behind. He whines softly in the back of his throat like a scared animal and Sam just squeezes harder.

_Jealous little bitch._

"Never. Again. Right, Dean?”

Dean takes a step towards Sam, folds his arms between them, tucks his face into the side of Sam’s neck and nods against it. Sam drags his jagged nails down Dean’s arm and feels the warm wet seep out to stain his nail beds, ripping a tortured moan from his brother’s chest.

“Dean?” Sam pushes him away, but holds on, just far enough that he can see his face without his vision crossing. Dean’s own eyes have gone soft, looking at him with stunned awe.

“Yeah, Sammy. Promise.”

Sam kisses him, cleans the tears from his chin and lips just as all the lights go out. Sam whispers to him in the darkness, in between the little licks he lays around his mouth and between his teeth.

“You like when I hurt you, don’t you, Dean?”

“Yes, Sammy.”

“You want me to do it some more?”

“ _Please_ , Sam.”

Sam pinches his chin between two fingers, shoves his face so that Dean stumbles back towards the tub.

“Take a shower, and then get dressed and pack your stuff. Wait for me to get back, okay?”

Dean immediately starts to undress, hopping on one foot to remove Sam's borrowed and soiled sweatpants.

"You with me, Dean?" Sam questions, and Dean’s head snaps up too quickly for Sam's comfort.

"Yeah, Sam. I'm with you."

Sam leaves Dean in the bathroom to wash up, mind racing while he hastily pulls on pants and pockets his wallet.  

Sam knows a few things now. About how to make Dean listen, about how to make him stay.

He opens the door and stares out across the grim landscape, Dean's soft voice calling to him as he leaves.

"I'm with you, Sam. _Always_."

Sam knows a lot of things, except what to do next.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Forest View Lounge is a real place, not too far from my home town. Never did try the burgers though.  
> http://www.forestviewlounge.com/


	5. like our luck’s finally changing

The door barely shuts behind him before Sam wrenches over, vomiting up what little he has in his stomach, just missing his shoes. A small pool of whitish-yellow foam on the wet blacktop. He rights himself, wipes at his mouth with the back of his arm and runs his hands through his hair. The rain has slowed to a sprinkle, the air hangs warm and humid. He wraps his arms around his middle and tries not to think, and in a moment of panic he lets his hand roam a little lower, brushing against his shameful erection, and his stomach clenches. He gags, body jerking violently, producing little but the burn of acid in the back of his throat.

He is so fucked.

His mind races, reviewing their situation, cataloging where they're at, where they’re going. Dean needs medical help. Bandages at least, antibiotics at most. They need to get out of here, get on the road, start moving. The stillness feels like hot breath on the back of his neck, his father’s voice creeping up behind him, judging him.

_You’re gonna kill ’im, kid. One of these days, he’s gonna die and it’ll be because of you. For you._

_No._

Sam scans the parking lot. Quiet and seemingly abandoned, not another living being in sight.

They need a car.

He self consciously pulls his shirt down in the front, reaching down to squeeze just briefly, sending tingles up his spine.

“This is not the time for this shit.” Sam mumbles. There will be plenty of time to dissect his sadistic side later. Now, car.

He scans the lot: A shiny red mid-life crisis, nope. A minivan, dark green flatbed truck, no. There. A brown box of a car, old but showing signs of care, the peeling paint and rust spots have been patched, one headlight replaced. Brand new tires.

_Yes._

Sam takes a few steps towards the car, casual-like, still sees no signs of life. Stops abruptly when his eyes are drawn just left of the car and his stomach drops. Patting his pockets for change, his legs carry him towards the pay phone against his will. It feels like years before he reaches it on legs heavy with dread. His hand shakes violently as he pushes the coins into the slot, dropping two nickels in the process. He takes a deep breath in and exhales slowly to try and calm the tremors as he holds the receiver in a death grip with one hand and punches in the numbers with the other.

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

Sam suddenly feels like he’s not alone in the parking lot. Looks over his shoulder but sees no one.

_Ring. Ring Ring. Ring._

His hand is reaching to hang up when the ringing cuts off abruptly.

“Sam?” His father’s voice sounds tired. Sam bites his lip, doesn’t speak. Listens to John’s uneven breathing. After a too long pause, John tries again.

“Dean?” He’s hesitant, questioning.

Sam twists his mouth unhappily at his father’s tone. “Dean’s fine.”

And his father exhales his name in relief. “Sam.”

A few moments pass and Sam wonders what he is trying to accomplish with the call. If he can maybe ease some of his guilt. He seems to have a surplus of it these days.

“We’re fine, Dad. Both of us. We’re-”

_Fucked up. In love. Gonna die. Totally, completely, free._

“-good.”

John inhales like he’s about to speak but just lets out a long shaky sigh. Sam continues.

“Really, Dad. I just, I just wanted you to know that, and that Dean’s safe. This is really good for him and-”

“Where are you?” His voice is soft but Sam can hear the strain in it, the tension. He rolls his shoulders and feels eyes on his back again.

“So, yeah. I just wanted you to know.”

“ _Sam._ ”

“Okay. Bye, Dad.”

“Sam!”

He slams the receiver down harder than necessary and jumps when he hears a voice directly behind him.

“That Dad?”

Sam whips around and curses himself for his slow reflexes. Dean is dressed, his favorite jeans with the tear in the right knee, faded pink Coca-cola t shirt that was red at some point, and his steel-toed boots. Both of their bags slung over his shoulders, hair still wet from the shower and the misting rain. A white hand towel is loosely knotted around his wrist, a makeshift bandage. A red blotch the size of a quarter is already visible on the inside of his arm where the blood is seeping through.

“Yeah. It was.” Sam looks down at his shoes sheepishly. Pokes his toe at a puddle and soaks the canvas of his sneaker. When he looks up, Dean is watching him carefully with eyes still a little red and glassy. His skin looks pale and damp, almost translucent. Fragile.

“He okay?” Dean asks. Sam nods.

“Okay then.” Dean shifts one bag to a different position on his shoulder, looks at Sam expectantly. “I uh, got our stuff together. Stole some towels, yanno. Just in case.” Dean’s shrug is inhibited by the heavy duffels. “So. What’s the plan, Sammy?”

Sam makes a move to grab a bag but Dean brushes him off, sighs and makes a _go ahead then_ motion with his hand. Sam turns around, facing the car, and says mostly to himself, “We need a car.”

Dean walks up alongside him and seems to understand. Makes a slow circle around the sedan, looks around before cupping his hands around his eyes and leaning in close to look through the passenger side window.

“Boosting a car, Sam? That’s highly illegal, kiddo.”

“Got a better idea?” Sam’s really asking; he’s lost over here. Dean tries to give him his normal easy going grin but it’s thin, quivers at the edges. He has dark circles under his eyes and a bruise on his chin that looks suspiciously like a thumbprint. The guilt feels a little heavier on Sam’s shoulders and he reaches back to rub away the ache. “Hey, Dean? You okay?”

Dean narrows his eyes over the top of the car, scowls. “No, Sam, I’m not okay. I’m starving. Look at me, I’m wasting away.” It’s a joke that falls flat when Sam rounds the front of the car and takes one of Dean’s cold hands in his. How is he so cold?

“Seriously, Dean. I mean, before, I didn’t- I just worry and…” He trails off and when he looks up, Dean’s got his nose crinkled in disgust.

“Sam, I’m sorry to have to be the one to break this to you, but your breath is rank.”

Sam feels a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. Fights it. “Bite me.”

“Sure, long as you don’t bite me and infect me with your stink.”

“Dean, please-”

“Sam, I think your insides are eating themselves. Seriously.” Dean pulls his hand back and walks around to the driver’s door. Pulls the handle and it opens like magic. “Food, Sam. Food.”

Sam throws his arms up, flustered, and looks around the empty parking lot again. “You know how to hotwire a car, Dean? Cuz I sure as hell don’t.”

“Oh, you don’t? I just kinda assumed my delinquent little brother knew a thing or two.” Dean rolls his eyes, throws their bags one after the other into the back seat and slips behind the wheel. Sam watches him slam the door, looking through the windshield at him with eyebrows raised.

_Always waitin’ on my little brother._

Sam yanks the door open, scrambles inside and pulls the door closed behind him. Dean’s grinning at him again, but it looks more real, technicolor, even under this grey sky.

“Okay, we’re in the car. Awesome.” Sam tries for annoyed but his confusion is very real. Sitting in this dusty old car smelling of stale cigarette smoke and mold. Picks empty beer cans from under his feet and throws them into the back seat.

“Yeah, _awesome,_ Sam. Looks like our luck’s finally changing.”

Sam opens his mouth to speak, snaps it shut when he sees Dean pointing at the ignition with keys still dangling from it.

“I will only say this once, Sam. But god bless drunk drivers.”

He turns the key and the engine turns over, noisy but strong. Dean reaches under his seat and pulls out another empty beer can and a half full bottle of no-name whiskey.

“See, Sammy?” Dean wiggles the bottle in his face, brown liquor sloshing up the side of the glass. “Things are turning around. Now, where to?”

Sam lets himself smile back, but his stomach is still churning. His back aches and he tries to straighten his posture but his shoulders roll forward, folding under the weight. He grabs the whiskey from Dean, screws off the top and wipes the mouth of the bottle with the bottom of his shirt. Takes a swig, coughs, takes another. He’s reckless, crazed. Not thinking straight and Dean’s looking at him with wide eyes, shocked and somewhat impressed.

“Sam, you know it’s, like, eight in the morning, right?”

Sam takes another drink. It slides warm and burning into his guts. His mouth tastes like liquor and salt water.

“Go...that way.” He points to their left, opposite the direction they came in. There’s no going back. Time to get gone.

_Anywhere but here._

“Aye aye, captain!” Dean bellows and peels off, tires squealing and sliding on the slick blacktop. They’re kids again, giggling and conspiring. Passing the bottle back and forth, chasing down the sunrise.

 

*

 

Sam leans back against the door, one leg pulled up onto the seat between them, the other stretched in the footwell, watching Dean. He always seems most content when he is driving, when he is moving. Doesn’t like to keep still. Windows down because he doesn’t like small spaces, either. Every mile or so one of them tosses an empty can out the window, watches it bounce and skitter away in the rear view. Sam’s scanning the road, looking for a gas station or a pharmacy, anywhere for supplies, but coming up empty. This really is the middle of nowhere.

Dean’s good arm is draped over the steering wheel, the hurt one lying in his lap limply. Looking thin-skinned and drained, palm up with fingers curled in like a dead spider. The car’s surprisingly smooth suspension rocks them back and forth as they hit open road, and mixed with the warm buzz of booze in his veins, Sam’s almost lulled to sleep. He’s floating.

“Hey, Dean?”

Dean turns his head towards him, eyes off the road for long stretches at a time. “Hey, Sam?”

“I love you. You know, right?”

“That whiskey hit you hard, huh, Sammy-boy?”

“No, Dean, _seriously._ ” Sam sits up a bit, pulls both legs up, knees to his chest and his head spins. Dean chuckles, reaches over and puts a hand on Sam’s knee, squeezes.

“I know, kiddo.”

“Dean.”

“What?”

“ _Dean._ ”

Sam sees it before his brother, the lights catch his eye before the siren starts wailing.

Cop.

Dean’s eyes shoot to the rearview mirror and he curses. Sam sits right and stupidly pulls his seatbelt across his lap like that will make a difference. In their stolen car, with the almost empty bottle of booze on the seat between them.

“Shit. Fuck, Dean! What are we-”

“Easy, Sam. Just let me do the talking.”

Dean slows the car, gingerly pulls onto the shoulder and turns the key, the car shuddering to sleep. Sam is frozen, eyes on Dean who is sitting calmly with his hands folded in his lap, staring straight ahead. His big brother could talk himself out of anything, always had a way with words that befuddled Sam. When Sam reaches to grab the bottle, to try and hide it under the seat, Dean puts a hand on his and stops him, looks across the seat and smiles. The sun slides out from behind a cloud and lights up his eyes, a soft breeze ruffles his hair and he looks so calm, so far removed from their perilous situation that Sam’s heart stops beating, just for a moment. He holds his breath and watches the cop approach.

“Morning, gentlemen.”

“Officer.”

“Where you fellas heading?”

Dean looks at Sam, looks back to the cop and chuckles easy as you please.

“No idea.”

“Just passing through, then?”

“Something like that.”

The cop doesn’t seem to appreciate that answer. He bends down, leans in. Fixes a look at Sam. “And how about you, son, do you know why I pulled you over?”

Sam can’t speak. He opens his mouth and nothing comes out, his breath caught in his throat.

“You were going seventeen miles over the speed limit. I just figured you must have somewhere real important to be.” He pauses, looks down at the bottle of whiskey sitting on the seat, back over to Sam, and considers him for a second. “You boys have a bit of trouble?”

He gestures towards Sam’s lap and he looks down. In their haste to get gone, Sam realizes he never washed his hands, changed his shirt. Both are streaked in dried blood, rust under his fingernails. Dean laughs then, too loud and the cop jumps, hand twitching to rest on his gun.

“License and registration, please.”

Dean laughs again, wipes a hand over his face, dragging his bottom lip down with the movement. Sam feels a cold sweat spring up on the back of his neck, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Panic.

“Yeah, there’s a small problem with that, Officer…” Dean leans out the window a bit, squints against the sun, “...Parker. Yeah, we don’t have it.”

Sam watches in stunned silence as the cop unsnaps his holster, freeing the gun, hand still resting lightly on the grip.

“Why is that, sir?”

“Sir? Oh, I’m ‘sir’ now? You hear that, Sammy? He called me ‘sir’!”

Sam reaches to get a hand on his brother and the cop barks at him. “Just stay where you are, son.” He’s jumpy, nervous. It’s then that Sam gets a good look at his face, and he’s young. Rookie. His attention turns back to Dean. “This isn’t a game. License and registration.”

“Oh, I ain't playin’, Officer Parker. I don’t have registration because this isn’t my car. I stole it.”

The cop smiles like he can’t believe his luck, giddy, and takes a step back.

“I’m going to need you to step out of the car, sir. Now!”

Sam grabs at the bottom of Dean’s shirt, clutches him, childlike. “Dean?”

“I said out of the car!”

Dean opens the door slowly, lifts his hands up, palms out, and slides himself into the rapidly warming morning. Sam unbuckles his seatbelt, crawls across the seat after him, hand outstretched because he can’t lose him, not like this. Dad isn’t right about him, about them. He can’t be, he won’t be.

Sam vaguely registers that the cop is raising his voice, that the words are being directed towards _him_ , feels the shadow cast by the large figure looming over him more than sees it because his eyes are focused on Dean.

It all happens so fast.

He sees a flash, hears a _pop_ very close to his ear, and drops down onto his belly. Looks up in time to see a struggle, the flailing of limbs and Dean wrestling the gun away. Pistol in hand, Dean pulls his arm back and brings it down, hard. Once, twice, three times and Sam feels a warm, wet spray across his face. Hears the cop’s heavy body hit the pavement over the ringing in his ears, the rattle of handcuffs and finally the _crack_ of skull hitting asphalt. Sam scrambles out the driver’s side door, has to step over Officer Parker’s body to get out of the car. Dean is standing over it, chest heaving, gun still dangling from his fingers, covered in gore and what looks like a clump of the man’s hair. Blood is splattered across his face and shirt, some parts of his pink shirt are red again. When Sam manages to say Dean’s name, his head snaps up, eyes wild.

“He almost. Fucking. Shot you.” He sounds confused, like the words don’t make sense. He pulls Sam roughly to him, runs his hands over his face, his chest, down his back.

“You okay, Sam? He didn’t hit you, did he? I’m gonna rip his lungs out! I swear to god I’ll fucking kill ’im.”

Sam doesn’t feel shot, looks himself up and down, tries to feel any pain, any entry wounds. Finds nothing. “I’m okay, Dean, I’m okay.”

Tears are obscuring his vision, he misses the first time he tries to grab Dean’s arm, pull him away. Everything looks soft around the edges, dreamlike, when Dean starts to kick.

It’s the sound that really gets to Sam first, wet sounding crunches. He wipes his eyes again and yanks at Dean’s shoulder, doesn’t mean to look down. Dean is kicking the man in the face, or at least what used to be his face. Skin is split open to bone, Sam sees flashes of white in all the pink. He pulls at Dean with all his strength but he is made of stone, he’s a brick wall. The stomping becomes almost rhythmic. Sam finds something familiar in the sound. Like when Dean would make them burgers sometimes in the summer. Mix everything up in a bowl and then smack the patties down on their chipped up old platter, one after another, stacks ready for the grill. Hamburger meat.

Sam turns just in time to avoid puking on the cop’s body.

_Corpse._

The whiskey burns a lot worse on the way up than it did on the way down. He gags again and the pain is sharp, a tearing feeling, and when he spits there’s blood. He wonders if his stomach is actually eating itself. The sound of him choking seems to snap Dean out of it, and he’s at Sam’s side in an instant. Rubs one hand in circles on Sam’s back, tries to comfort. But the hand sticks to his shirt, drying blood like glue and it just makes Sam’s stomach crawl up his throat.

“Sam? Sammy, you okay?”

Sam laughs, giggles bubble up out of his throat and it _hurts_. He sounds crazy, he feels crazy. Hysterical. “Dean?”

“Yeah, Sam. I’m here.”

Sam straightens up, takes a deep, shaky breath and turns towards the body. Brushes Dean’s hands away as he walks over, terrified. Kneels down next to the fallen police officer. Dean stays close, standing right over his shoulder, and watches as Sam leans in. The man’s face is completely unrecognizable, one big mass of swollen tissue, blood, and pulverized cartilage. But between his lips, Sam watches tiny red bubbles expand and pop, the ever so shallow rise and fall of his chest. He’s breathing.

Sam rises, spins. Gets two hands on Dean’s chest and shoves as hard as he can, causing him to stumble backwards. Dean looks wounded, chin tipped down and shoulders hunched like a kicked dog.

“What the _fuck_ , Dean?”

Dean’s voice comes out quiet and weak. Little boy chastised. “He pointed a gun at you. At _you_ , Sam. Why did he think he could do that?” Dean is shaking his head as he speaks, eyes on the unconscious heap of man at their feet. Blinking away tears, brows drawn together in confusion. “Doesn’t he know who we are. Who you are?”

Now Dean isn’t the only one who’s confused.

“Dean, before that. Before he pulled out his gun. What was your plan exactly, huh? How did you think we were gonna get out of this once he saw the open container in the car? I mean, you _told_ him the car was stolen. What was that?”

“I don’t know, Sammy, I don’t know who that was.”

_It’s only a matter of time._

“Wait, what?”

“I thought I had it under control. I was gonna take care of it. No way I’d let anything happen to you. You know that. Don’t you, Sam?”

“It’s a cop, Dean. A cop.”

“You know though, don’t you, Sam? That I’d keep you safe. No matter what?” Dean’s face is split open, vulnerable with the need to be reassured.

This is how Sam takes care of him.

“Yeah, Dean, I know. No matter what.” Sam’s words are muffled at the end as Dean wipes at his mouth, smearing around the blood and cursing.

“You bleedin’, Sam?”

Sam pushes his hands away and touches his own face, his neck. Fingers come away red and he knows what they must look like, the two of them. It looks like a murder scene.

“No, Dean. Get off for a sec. It’s his blood, it’s his.”

Dean takes a step past Sam and spits on the body, growls. “Mother _fucker_.”

Sam tugs on the back of his t shirt, one of the few places on him not covered in blood. “Dean, come on. We gotta get out of here.”

Dean looks at him, then back to the body. “We can’t just leave him lying here like this. I mean, we gotta move him, right?”

Sam sighs and feels a decade older. “Yeah.”

It takes some maneuvering, but together they manage to carry the man and place him behind the wheel of the cruiser. Sam strips off his shirt and wipes everything they touch for prints, hopes Dean didn’t bleed anywhere. Turns the cop car off but leaves the keys in the ignition. Sam jogs over to their car, yanks the passenger side door open and chokes when he sees it. A hole; the bullet is wedged in the door, just below the window. Right about the same height as his head had been earlier. He swallows the sick rising in his throat and calls to Dean, “Now, Dean. We gotta go!”

Dean trots back over, pulls the door open and slides in. Turns the key in the ignition and after looking in the rearview window one last time, he pulls away and starts heading down the road.

Sam closes his eyes and sees red, tries to cover them with his hands to block out the sun. He can hear Dean breathing next to him, measured and deep, in and out. Without looking, he reaches over for the bottle and unscrews the top, finishing the backwash at the bottom. He hears Dean chuckle softly as he tosses the empty in the back seat and brings his hand back to rest on the seat between them. A few moments pass and he feels Dean’s hand on his own, wriggles his fingers until his brother’s are entwined with his, and then Sam opens his eyes. His brother is watching him cautiously, eyes on him and not on the road, per usual. He’s covered in drying blood, a piece of his hair spiked pink with it and shirt plastered to his chest with sweat. And he is so beautiful it hurts. Sam squeezes his hand, turns his face away in time to hide his tears. He feels a twinge deep down inside, some mixture of fear, panic and arousal at the thought that he never saw the gun. Never checked to see if Dean had returned it to the cop’s holster. He looks over at his big brother glowing in the early afternoon sunlight. Pale skin lit up, white gold and ruby red, and fire in those green eyes like a god of war.

Sam thinks he has his answer.

“We gotta get off the main road, man. Like, now,” Sam croaks, voice breaking any illusion that he is okay.

Dean nods in agreement, turns to face forward. Strips off his shirt and chucks it at Sam’s head.

“ _Dean._ Gross.” Sam snatches the shirt away but can still smell it. Sweat and blood and Dean.

“Dude, just wipe some of that asshole’s blood off your face and check the glove box. See if there’s a map or somethin’.”

Sam wipes at himself with the damp shirt, ignores the warmth blooming low in his belly. Throws the ruined shirt back at Dean, pops the glove box open and immediately gets a lapful of garbage. Empty cigarette packs, napkins from a dozen fast food restaurants, a map, and a skinny leather pouch with a snap closure. Sam pops it open, tips the sheath and what’s inside falls into his hand. Small, cool, metal.

Knife.

Sam’s eyes shoot over to his brother who for once is actually watching the road while wiping at his face. He slips the knife into his pocket, puts the map on the seat between them and brushes the rest off his lap to the floor.

“Map,” he announces dully, tries to unfold it with hands shaking from excess adrenaline. Four attempts and two tears later, he grunts in frustration, and throws it into the backseat with the rest of the garbage. His head is spinning and he doesn’t think it’s the alcohol.

“Sammy, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” It comes out harsh, and he’s breathing heavily, greedily sucking in air but not getting enough oxygen. He can’t breathe. Why can’t he breathe? Sparkling lights dance across his vision and he’s reminded of stars. Dark skies and dark water and Dean going under.

_No._

“ _Sam!_ Sammy, just hold on, just-”

The car veers to the right and they’re suddenly bumping down some dirt road. Sam doesn’t see it coming but realizes he has his eyes shut tightly, his fists clenched hard on top of his thighs. He feels like he’s drowning.

It’s an eternity before the car jerks to a stop, and Dean grabs at him. Roughly turns Sam sideways on the seat and slides his body towards him. He feels Dean put a hand on the back of his neck, uses the other to tip his chin up, then places that hand lightly on his bare chest.

“Sam, open your eyes. Sam. Look at me!”

Sam’s eyes spring open on command and find Dean’s face very, very close to his. Dean’s mouth stretched into a concerned line, he’s squeezing the back of Sam’s neck and saying something that’s hard for Sam to hear, like the words are coming from underwater. Sam forces himself to focus.

“Sam. You need to breathe. Watch me. Sammy, _please._ ”

Dean rubs small circles on his chest, breathes in slowly, deeply. Exhales right into Sam’s mouth. Again, deep breath in, and out. Sam watches his mouth, one side a little swollen like maybe the cop had gotten a shot in after all.

“You can do it, Sam, just breathe.”

Concentrates on the feeling of Dean’s warm palm on the center of his chest, how close his soft, pink mouth is.

_I want you to stay with me, you just gotta open up and let it in._

Something in his chest unlocks. Air rushes in, and he starts to pant so hard he’s dizzy. The relief is plain on Dean’s face, the shadows leave his eyes but he’s still breathing with him, into him.

“Slow, Sam. Like me, watch.”

Dean wets his lips, forms them into a shiny ‘o’ and flattens the hand on Sam’s chest, his fingers spanning across his heart. Sam head is pounding in beat with his heart, but he can feel the controlled rise and fall of his chest, his vision clear now. Sharper than ever before. He puts his hand over the one on his chest, leans forward and kisses him. Dean exhales in a huff of laughter and just melts into him. He takes Sam’s face in both hands tenderly, tilts it to the side and kisses him back.

Sam can taste them both, sour breath with a hint of whiskey that doesn’t quite mask the smell of his sick. He tastes copper, too, Dean’s blood in the mix and thinks that makes it almost perfect. There’s one thing that could make it better, so he pulls his face away for a moment. Presses his thumb into the bruised corner of his brother’s lips and Dean hisses, doesn't pull away. He leans in again, finds the little swollen ball of flesh there and puts his mouth around it. Sucks the corner of Dean’s bottom lip into his mouth, worries it with his teeth a little to watch him squirm, and then bites down. Dean groans, his hands slide back and wrap around the back of Sam’s head, pushes him closer, harder against his own mouth. Sam gets a stronger, brighter taste of copper and suckles. Dean writhes in his seat, grinds Sam’s face into his, and Sam’s bottom teeth press into his chin, leaving indents.

When Sam pulls back to catch his breath again, he watches a small drop of blood well up where he was biting, spill over and drip down Dean’s chin. He reaches up, smears it with his thumb and Dean ducks forward to take it into his mouth. Sam closes his eyes and groans.

“Sammy?”

“Yes.” It comes out in a wheeze, lungs still not fully back online.

“I wanna do something for you. Can I?”

“Anything.”

Dean smiles hesitantly, teeth painted pink with blood. “You’re not mad at me?”

Sam opens his eyes, stares at his brother in amazement. “ _Fuck._ No, Dean, not mad.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay, now just. Just let me.”

Dean reaches, unbuttons Sam’s jeans and pulls at his zipper, tugs them a little ways down his hips. Sam’s brain sputters, starts to put together what’s happening.

“Shit, Dean. Here? We’re right in the middle of-” Sam looks up for the first time since the car stopped. The car sits a little ways off an abandoned dirt road, smack dab in the middle of a forgotten field. Brittle yellow stalks surround them, bent over and crushed by heavy dry winds.

“A wheat field?” Sam finishes, bewildered. Dean has gone to his knees on the seat next to him, wriggled Sam’s pants and boxers halfway down his legs, head ducked down so close Sam can feel the breath of his words on his hard cock.

“Nowhere, Sam. We’re nowhere, and everywhere.” And he slides all of Sam into his mouth in one movement.

It’s so warm, so wet and Sam has never, never ever. Dean’s sloppy about it, noisy. Slurps Sam down like he’ll die without it. It’s cramped, Dean curled in over Sam’s lap, head bobbing slowly, saliva running down, dripping hot onto his balls only to be lapped up again by Dean’s hungry tongue. He switches back and forth like he’s not sure which he likes more, and Sam doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He settles with one on Dean’s back, slick with sweat, the other gripping the edge of the car door, white knuckled. His thumb presses into the hole the bullet made, the one that almost took this moment away from him, that almost ended their story.

Dean’s moaning loudly around him. Sam can feel the vibrations straight through to his spine and it lights him up from the inside. His whimpers cut off as Sam hits the back of his throat and he gags, pulls up, and rests his chin on Sam’s shoulder. Mouth so close, he sucks his earlobe between sloppy, wet lips. Whispers with breath warm and moist, tickles his ear. “Too big for me, baby boy. _Fuck._ You’re my _little_ brother, Sam.”

_Best stay that way._

Sam knows the line, but misses his cue. Dean just chuckles fondly, lowers his head back into Sam’s lap. Swirls his tongue around the crown, every rough drag like a matchhead to the striker, throwing off sparks. It’s Dean who lights his fuse. Sam’s skin is hot, so hot like he’ll burst into flames at any minute and Dean will burn here right alongside him. Sam tries to focus on his breathing again, looks out the windshield across the vast nothingness, the blue sky that goes on forever and ever and his heart clenches in his chest. He wonders if he combusts, right at this moment, if it would catch to this field full of kindling. If they would burn the whole damn field down around them leaving nothing but a smoking crater as evidence.

_The Winchesters were here._

Their love is destruction, an inferno, and Sam promises himself they will take the whole goddamn world down with them if necessary.

Throat tight, Sam digs blunt nails into Dean’s back and sobs out his brother’s name. Dean moans in response, sucks harder, pushes Sam further down his throat. Sam feels the resistance, Dean trying to swallow him and it’s all too much. He spreads his legs as much as he’s able, trapped in pants pulled halfway down his thighs. His toes curl so hard they’re cramping in his sneakers and his head is thrown back. He dares to look down then, catches the obscene stretch of his brother’s swollen lips as they wrap around him, wet and rosy red. The tears collected in the corners of his eyes spill over and drop onto the back of Dean’s head, and he places his hand on top, presses down and rubs the salt into his scalp. His hips are rocking up without his permission, feels himself cutting off Dean’s air, but Dean doesn’t even pause. Just works Sam with his right hand, the edge of his makeshift bandage tickling his inner thigh, while the left snakes its way into the space in between his legs. Turns his head to the side, begging in between desperate gasps.

“Sam, please. I need to taste you. I want it all. All of you, Sammy.”

Swallowing him back up, he pushes further into the moist heat underneath, makes space for himself and brushes fingertips over his sac, sending tingles through Sam’s whole body. Lower still, he presses two fingers under his balls, slides them back to that most secret place. The place Sam still hasn’t gathered the courage to explore. Sam forgets to breathe, sees stars, fireworks on the Fourth of July. He watches everything he has ever known and loved reflected in the windshield of this stolen heap of a car. The flames are licking his face and before he can utter a warning or comprehend what’s happening the fire swallows him whole and he’s coming down his brother’s throat. Dean sputters and chokes but doesn’t pull up. He swallows over and over for what feels like forever, sucking and licking like he wants every last drop.

He slowly slides Sam’s softening cock most of the way out, holds just the tip in his mouth, savoring. When Sam feels like he might start really sobbing, he gently places his hands on either side of Dean’s head and guides him up and away.

Dean’s got matching tear tracks on his face and he’s gasping for air, but his face is split open with joy like Christmas morning. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and it’s a familiar action, one Sam’s seen a million times before, but this time is different. Things will never be the same after this moment and now that he’s had this part of Dean, he doesn't understand how he ever lived without it. They were just surviving before, now they are alive.

_Alive.   Alive._

“Sam?” Dean pants, eyes glowing spring green behind damp lashes.

“Huh?” Sam’s dazed brain won’t provide a better response.

“Was I? Uh, was that, your first time?”

Sam doesn’t know how he can blush any deeper, but he does. His skin feels sunburned, oversensitive. Every nerve a live wire. He nods quickly, moves his head to the side to break eye contact. Can’t stand to see Dean’s surprise, his secondhand embarrassment. But Dean reaches up, cups his chin with a hand still moist with the mixture of spit and Sam’s come and turns his face towards him. When Sam looks back up, Dean’s smiling at him again, warm and genuinely satisfied.

“Good.” His smile dims, replaced by something determined and fierce. “ _Mine._ ”

Sam nods again, agrees. “Yours.”

Sam is reaching over to try and touch his brother, to reciprocate, when Dean abruptly slides back behind the driver’s seat and looks ahead. Sam copies his movement and is amazed to see the field is still standing and not smoldering embers. Dean turns the key in the ignition, and Sam scrambles to pull his soggy boxers and pants over his overstimulated dick. Sees a flash out of the corner of his eye, the knife peeking out of his pocket, reflecting the sunlight. He winces, pushes it down further and looks over at Dean just as he shifts the car into drive.

“Still hungry, Sammy?”

Sam has this sudden feeling, something like fear, niggling at the back of his mind. Pinching and biting like beetles in his brain but he stamps it down. Nothing will ruin this moment. He grins.

“Starving.”

Dean pulls sharply onto the dirt path that leads them back to the road. The final traces of adrenaline drained from Sam’s system, leave him wrung out and sated. He leans his head back and glances at Dean from under heavy lids, lip swollen and discoloured, eyes still wet, electric green and wild. They make their way down the road towards food and medicine and freedom and the last thing Sam does before he falls asleep is make a wish. He hopes, that whatever place they stop to eat, they know the difference between a shake and a malt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was my first attempt at actual smut. Be kind ;)


	6. the Devil on our side tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a loud rapping that wakes Sam this time and he wonders what Dean has against rousing him gently.

It’s a loud rapping that wakes Sam this time and he wonders what Dean has against rousing him gently. He pushes the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and grinds in the sand. Swats an arm out, tries to connect with the source of the sound without opening his eyes.

" _Dean._ Just five more minutes,” he hears himself whine, but there’s no answer. It’s then that he remembers where he is. Inside their stolen car, but they’re not moving.

“Dean?” He opens his eyes and sits up a little, yawns deeply. Dean’s not in the driver seat and the sun is low in the sky, shining painfully bright through the glass. Sam looks at the clock, the numbers swim in and out and he can’t quite make out the time and the rapping startles him again. Someone’s knocking on the passenger side window.

“Dean. What’s your hurry? It’s not like we got anywhere to be.” Sam turns his head and his next words die in his throat. Long slender fingers with sharp knuckles tap the glass again. Delicate and unscarred like his own. The woman, it’s a woman, wears a cornflower blue dress dusted with pink roses, and he could never forget that dress. Sam rolls down the window just as the figure leans in. His hands grip the edge of the window frame, and her corn silk waves tickle the tops of his fingers.

“Mom?”

She doesn’t smile, just nods, mouth twists up to the side with worry. Reaches forward and threads her fingers through his hair like she always did when she tucked him in at night. He leans into the touch, too overwhelmed to speak.

But it’s okay, because she does the talking for both of them.

“Sam. Oh, Sam.”

He watches a soft fondness bloom behind her eyes.

“Sam, you’re so grown up. You’re almost a man, aren’t you?”

Sam nods, voice locked up inside, too many words trying to leave at once are caught there in his throat.

“Sam Winchester, I am so disappointed in you.”

Sam looks down, away from her eyes just starting to tear. He stares at the clusters of little roses, pink on blue, and remembers. Small slivers of thoughts spring up, unfold like sunlight peeking through their kitchen blinds, spread across the counter like a golden fan. A suitcase, a letter. Their father crying, sobbing openly, and at that point in his life it had been the scariest thing Sam had ever seen.  And Dean, Dean was missing. This was the dress she wore the day she left.

“Sam, how could you? How _could_ you?”

Sam looks back up at her, into eyes so like Dean’s he shakes his head for a moment, confused.

_Dean has her eyes, but you, Sam? You got her anger._

Sam wants to ask why, what has he done. But he knows. He knows what he does to his brother and what he’s going to do and he can’t find it in him to be sorry. Not now, now that he has Dean all to himself. So he juts his chin out, doesn’t cry. She’s the one that left. Her. They stare at each other for a long moment until she finds what she’s looking for there and nods to herself, eyes going dim.

“You’re going to kill him.” No remorse, no sadness. Just a fact.

Prophecy.

He feels a hand on his shoulder and he startles, gasps and strikes out without thinking. He hears a grunt and looks over at Dean, now sitting next to him. It’s night time, he’s in the car and so is Dean, and Mom’s gone.

Again.

“Sorry, Sam,” Dean mumbles but Sam jumps at his words, still disoriented and panicked. Dean smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I was gonna let you sleep a little longer but, uh, you were making these noises. And they weren’t happy noises.”

Dean’s lit up from behind with a giant red glowing sign that reads _Happy Days Diner_. It has a blinking neon border with a picture of fluffy pancakes stacked up on a plate, little pat of yellow butter on top. He’s wearing a different shirt, the black and red flannel with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, wrinkled from being stuffed at the bottom of a bag all day. His hair is wet like he just showered and Sam shakes his head a little to clear the confusion.

“You’re wet,” he manages to croak out and Dean chuckles under his breath, reaches into the back seat for Sam’s bag and drops it on the seat between them.

“Yeah. Stepped inside and cleaned myself up a bit. Just so we can grab some grub. Fuckin’ starving.”

Sam just looks at his brother, the sign, and back, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Dean reaches forward to ruffle his hair, fingers tangling in knots made by dried blood.

“So, your turn, Sammy-boy. I’ll go get us a booth. You go get yourself a whore’s bath.”

“ _Dean,_ ” Sam grumbles but he can’t fight the smile that crosses his face. Dean’s gonna go in and grab them a table. Huh.

Sam digs through the bag, pulls out a plain white t shirt and pulls it on before exiting the car. Dean waits for Sam to go ahead, locks up and follows him. When they are just inside the doors he gestures right, to a short hallway off the main dining area to the bathroom, Sam guesses. He makes it there on unsteady legs, flips the light and squints as it flickers on.

He gasps softly to himself as his reflection comes into focus. The front of his hair is in clumps, matted with dried blood. His eyes look bloodshot and bruised underneath, his chin scraped up like rug burn. And along his neck and collarbone a spattering of blood like rust colored freckles. Not like the fawn colored ones that dust over Dean’s nose and his shoulders, making constellations like stars in the night sky. Nothing like that. Sam steps closer to the streaked mirror, water dripping down its surface like Dean dunked his head in the sink and shook off like a dog. Probably did. Sam gets to work, scrubs at his hands and arms with bubblegum colored soap. Dips his head forward and runs the lukewarm water through his matted hair, watches the pink water swirl down the drain. Mops at everything with rough brown paper towels and sighs unhappily at the collar of his white shirt, now with a faint wash of orange.

He pees, washes his hands again because even after everything that’s happened, he’s not an animal. Not really. Even if the brownish crust of dried blood refuses to come out from beneath his fingernails. He messy combs his wet hair with his fingers, wincing at the sharp pain when he hits a knot. He feels a tickle across the top of his hand but when he goes to pull the stray hairs off he doesn’t find any. Sam thinks of blonde waves and long fingers and stone cold eyes. Shivering, he marches himself out the door to find their booth and his brother.

When he turns the corner, he thinks he’s gonna be sick. Again. Going to throw up whatever small amount of blood and bile that has gathered in his stomach and die right here in the middle of this shit roadside diner because he sees Dean sitting at a booth along the window and he is surrounded.

With girls.

Sam mumbles curses under his breath because _are you fucking kidding me_ he was only gone a matter of minutes. But it’s always like chum in the water when Dean is around and people can’t seem to help themselves. And Sam gets it, he does.

But Dean doesn’t belong to them.

“Dean?” Sam hates the way his voice squeaks when he’s nervous or annoyed. Not threatened, definitely not that. Dean leans forward in his seat a bit to look around one dark haired girl with ridiculously large breasts and bright red lips.

“Heya, Sammy!” Dean sounds excited and almost surprised, like he hadn’t just seen him five minutes before. Even with the fan club chittering around them Sam’s heart still gives a squeeze at the warmth.

“Ladies, this is the Sam I was telling you about. My pain in the ass little brother.”

It’s the truth but it stings all the same.

The other girl, this one with hair blue and purple like a bruise and eyeshadow to match, reaches for his face, pinches a cheek, and Sam squawks, stricken.

“Hey, Sam! Your brother here was just telling us you two are on a road trip, to...” she trails off, and Dean jumps in, lifts his hands up and gestures around the room like he’s taking it all in. “Janice here was nice enough to let us know where we ended up.” Janice, the one currently in Sam’s personal space, takes a step back, laughing.

“You two are crazy, just driving cross country with nowhere to be.” She places her hands backwards on the table, fingers gripping the edge. “Troublemakers” she adds, batting her lashes as she leans in to give Dean a good view of cleavage barely contained in her v-neck sweater. He looks her over not-so-subtly and licks his lips like he likes what he sees. Sam tries to interrupt their little moment by slamming down into the opposite booth, jostling the table so hard the water in their glasses sloshes and spills over. He glares at Dean like he can snap him out of it with a look. Wonders if Janice leaned in far enough she could still smell Sam’s hot salty skin, his come, on Dean’s breath. The thought wriggles around in him until he’s squirming in the booth, half hard and bitter about it. He wants to slap the stupid grin right off Dean’s face and not stop until his cheek is as red as his lips looked after Sam had bitten them. Dean chooses that moment to look over to him, doesn’t miss the anger in Sam’s expression.

“Blackwater, Ok-kla-hom-a.” Dean elongates the word like he’s speaking to someone hard of hearing and Sam’s eyes narrow so far he’s seeing Dean through the veil of his lashes.

“Oh yeah?” Sam grits out. Dean raises an eyebrow, challenging.

“Yeah.”

The seconds stretch out and Sam thinks he’s going to start screaming if everyone doesn’t stop looking at him. So he snatches up a menu instead, knocks the salt shaker over in the process so granules pour out in a messy little pile. His face heats with embarrassment and Sam lifts the laminated sheet, covered with gaudy pictures of badly photographed food, hides behind it. Half considers only ordering a side salad because he knows it will annoy his brother, but decides against it because he could probably order one of everything and still not be satisfied. Sam peeks around the menu to see his brother watching him carefully, throws him his best pissy-little-brother face. Dean finally gets the point and clears his throat. Rights the overturned salt shaker and picks up a pinch, throws it over his right shoulder.

“You know, you’re supposed to throw it over your _left_ shoulder, right?” Sam’s voice is quiet, muffled, but Dean already knew what he was going to say.

“Who knows, Sammy? We may need the Devil on our side tonight.”

The girls both giggle, but whether they get the joke or not is hard to tell.

Sam can feel the tension stretched between them like a rubber band pulled tight and ready to snap.

_Bite. Maim. Kill.       Mine._

“Well, ladies, I’m sorry to break up the party but we’re real hungry and we gotta be hittin’ the road, so…”

The girls sigh unhappily and one, _not-Janice_ , pushes a scrap of paper into Dean’s shirt pocket. “That’s too bad. But if you boys change your mind, we were thinking of grabbing a beer tonight.” Dean gives his best _aw shucks_ smile, doesn’t even flinch when Sam kicks his shin under the table.

“Thing is, Sam here isn’t twenty-one yet, and we wouldn’t want to go breaking the law, now would we?” He makes no mention that he isn’t of legal age to drink either. Or that the smudge of blood on the back of his wrist belongs to a cop he nearly beat to death only hours earlier. Sam doesn’t know how they ended up here. He looks around for a waitress, suddenly feeling the need to get fed and get going. Fast.

Janice jumps in then, wearing a cheshire cat grin. “Oh, well, it’s the kinda place they look the other way. Everybody’s money spends the same. Know what I mean?”

Dean winks at her, actually _winks_ , and Sam almost throws his water in Dean’s face.

“Well then, let me confer with my brother and get back to you.” He pats the paper in his pocket. “And again, Janice.” He nods at one, then the other. “Nicole. Thank you for _all_ your hospitality.”

Sam’s fuming when he finally catches the waitress’s eye, who seems to sense his desperation and moseys over, sporting a blue and white checkered apron. Sam can’t believe this. They’re in a movie, they have to be.

The girls make their way to the exit slowly and Dean watches them go, Janice’s hips swinging from side to side, while Sam seethes in his seat. Doesn’t wait for Dean, orders chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and a coke without checking if it’s even on the menu. This kinda place has to have something like that, he thinks to himself. The waitress grunts in the affirmative and takes Dean’s order, the all too predictable bacon cheeseburger and fries. And a chocolate malt to start.

They wait for their food in silence. The air between them hanging heavy, smelling of grease and smoke and Sam wants to reach through the fog and flick Dean’s forehead, just to get a reaction. Dean finally turns his attention back to Sam and breaks the silence. “So, Sammy...I was thinking-”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sam snaps, eyes now fixed on the chipped tabletop, fingers trailing through the tiny water puddles there. Turning circles into starbursts.

“Oh, do you?” Dean raises an eyebrow, pushing him, always pushing.

“Yup. You’re thinking you wanna go to that bar later. Get drunk and stare at _Tits McGee_ a little more.” There’s a brief twinge of guilt in his chest as the words leave his mouth. It’s not the girl’s fault, never is. It’s just his brother makes him so crazy, makes him so-

“Sam. You wound me!” Dean voice breaks through his thoughts and Sam looks up, catches Dean with a hand clutched over his heart, his mouth hanging open in mock shock. After a moment he drops his hands into his lap and closes his mouth. Sucks on his injured lip and stares at his hands, mulling something over. “I was actually thinking, maybe _we_ could go later. And I could, yanno. Buy you a beer, in a bar. Like, proper or whatever.” When Sam catches the slight blush on Dean’s face, the pink tips of his ears, the anger and frustration leave his body in such a rush that he’s left lightheaded and giddy. He chooses his next words carefully.

“Do you want to take me on a date?”

Dean scoffs at him, exhales hard enough that Sam feels the breeze from across the table. But Sam sees right through him, decides to push back for a change.

“You do! You wanna take me on a date.” Sam grins from ear to ear, watches Dean’s head snap to the side to see if anyone else in the diner was listening in. The waitress picks that moment to appear, two armfulls of plates overflowing with fried things and smelling of rich gravy and bacon. As the plates are set down they thank her and nod at each other quickly, a small truce agreed on until after they eat.  Sam is practically shoveling mashed potatoes and pepper gravy in his mouth when Dean takes a sip of his malt, _oh so casual_ and says, “You know Sammy, I was thinking less of a date, more like, get you drunk and take advantage of you. But if you want to call it a date…”

Sam inhales potatoes on a gasp and Dean stops cackling long enough to lean over the table and put a hand on his shoulder to confirm Sam isn’t actually choking to death. Now Sam is the one blushing, he feels the heat spreading across his chest and up his neck.

“Hey, Sammy, try not to die before then, ’kay?”

Sam just shakes his head up and down, hoping maybe the action can clear the gravy from his lungs. Dean smiles fondly, takes a huge bite of his burger, and with ketchup smeared across his top lip he reaches a hand over to place on top of Sam’s, warm and rough, with grease on his fingertips. When he speaks, Sam gets a full view of his half chewed food.

“Can’t take you anywhere, kiddo.”

 

*

 

They find a motel with the help of their waitress, whose entire demeanor changes under the undivided attention of Dean and his trademark charm. After her apologies for bringing him a chocolate shake, yes _shake_ , instead of a malt, she made it her mission to find them the nicest and most affordable place to rent a room in the area. Luckily for them both there was only one place to choose from, _The Iron Horse Motel_. It's just a five minute drive away, and on the way they pass a hole-in-the-wall little dive called _He’s Not Here_. Dean pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket and hands it over to Sam to confirm the name of the bar Nicole had written down next to her own, the “i” dotted with a tiny heart, and below, her phone number. Sam rolls his eyes, stares hard out the passenger window, cramming the note into his pants pocket. Tries to look past his own reflection in the glass, watch the streetlights zip past like fireflies, and mutters, “That’s the place.”

Dean chuckles softly and cuffs the back of Sam’s head. “Cute name, huh, Sam?”

Sam swats back and narrowly misses him. “Yeah, Dean. _Real_ cute.”

Dean checks them in using John’s credit card again, without incident, and Sam thinks of their father. Sitting at home, defeated, lonely and probably drunk. Almost definitely drunk. When they make it into the room Sam dumps both duffels on the first bed and starts stripping immediately, eager to be rid of clothes reeking of sweat and blood and diner grime. Dean watches him for a moment before doing the same, quickly pulling off layers like it’s a race, and it probably is. First shower has always been a highly coveted thing at their house, seeing as Dean tends to use up all the hot water. Sam feels a little _zing_ zip through him, exhilaration, when he realizes he’s beat Dean, until his eyes land on his brother. He’s standing still, frozen mid action, thumb hooked on the edge of his boxers and staring at Sam. It makes him cross his arms over his chest, a self conscious and ridiculous gesture seeing he’s completely naked from the waist down. But that stare does something to him, shoots right to his bones and he suddenly feels small and childlike. Gawky and awkward and too skinny, with knobby knees and a xylophone ribcage. But Dean’s eyes drag over him like he’s seeing him for the first time and when they reach his face he tilts his head, blinks his eyes a few times and rubs a hand down his face. Licking his lips, he takes a deep breath and speaks so softly to himself.

“It’s just Sam. Sammy.”

Sam shakes his head, tilts his chin down to hide behind his hair.

“What, Dean?”

A shiver races up his spine, settles behind his eyes, tunnel vision like the beginning of one of his headaches. The ones that start out with flashing lights that blind him and leave crippling pain and nausea in their wake. When he dares peek back at Dean again, his brother’s eyes have gone cold, frosted over. They are focused at some point on the ground near Sam’s feet and Sam follows his gaze down. Sees smears of old blood on his own stomach, the dried mess of spit in the crease of his thigh. And at his feet, having slipped out of his pocket when he shucked off his jeans, is the knife. Dean crouches down to pick it up, slides out the blade with careful fingers and looks up at Sam, asks an obvious question.

“What’s this, Sam?”

“What does it look like, _Dean_? It’s a knife.”

“Yeah, no shit. Where’d you get it?”

“It was in the glovebox, of the car. I just thought…”

Dean stands up slowly, body so close to Sam’s until their faces are inches apart. Dean twists and turns the knife, the lamplight flashes off the blade.

“It was just in case I needed protection or-”

“That’s what _I’m_ here for, Sam.” Dean takes a step back, eyes still focused on the knife. He tests the edge with his thumb. “ _I_ protect you. You don’t need this.” Dean’s eyes snap back up to his face, and Sam sneers, suddenly and irrationally angry.

“Yeah, and now that we’re on the subject, Dean, where’s the gun?” Sam spits the question out, takes a step towards his brother.

“Don’t you worry about that.”

“But I am worried about it. It isn’t just any gun. It’s a cop’s gun, a cop you could have killed!”

“Sam?” Dean’s voice is softer now, scared. “Sam, you said he wasn’t dead.”

“Yeah, Dean, when we left him he was still breathing. But who knows what happened after we left? And you’re just driving around with a possible murder weapon, in the car.”

Dean shrugs him off, glares. Sam pulls a dirty trick on him.

“In the car with _me_ , Dean.”

Dean makes a little hurt sound like a kicked dog, his eyes full of unshed tears, and Sam feels shame, but not enough to back down now. Sam reaches a hand out towards him, palm up, orders. “Give me the knife, Dean. Now.”

Dean slides the blade in and hands it over immediately.

“Just in case, okay, Dean?” Sam collects his clothes up off the floor slowly, eyes on his brother the whole time like he may disappear if not pinned down. Shoves everything in his bag, coils his belt loop by loop and places it on top, dropping the knife right in the middle.

Dean wipes his eyes roughly and swallows, eyes fixed at some point behind Sam’s head, and Sam feels the itch again, beetles in his brain, his heart is beating too fast.

“Dean!”

He jumps, eyes fixed on Sam again but a little glassy and far away.

“This is important. Where. Did you put. The gun?”

Dean’s eyes dart around like he’s searching Sam’s face for the right answer, but after a few long moments where the air feels so still and heavy Sam is afraid to even take a breath, Dean’s expression breaks. Morphs into something else, dark and sharp with a smile that looks more like a baring of teeth. A challenge.

_Unpredictable, that’s what your brother is._

“Don’t worry, Sammy.” He raises his hand and points at Sam, fingers curled into the shape of a gun. “I got it somewhere safe.” He cocks the imaginary hammer back with his other hand and aims right between Sam’s eyes. “You know. Just in case.” Mouths _bang bang_ , and pulls the trigger. Sam hears his mother’s voice in his head. Sees her swaying in front of the stove on a Sunday morning, singing along to one of her old records, flipping pancakes and sipping at her spiked orange juice, on her breath that familiar echo of alcohol. Nancy Sinatra, sunshine and screwdrivers.

_Bang bang, my baby shot me down._

Sam feels something in the room shift, like the floor tilted just for a second, and he has to take a step back to regain his balance. This isn't right, not the way it goes, and he’s suddenly watching Dean turn away from him. He rifles through Sam’s bag until he finds his pants, pulls out the slip of paper Sam had stashed there. Swipes the phone of the side table and punches in the numbers, is almost immediately answered by a voice excited enough that Sam can hear the tinny squeak from across the room. Sam stands frozen, listening to one side of the conversation.

“Sure. Nine-o-clock. Got it. You, too. Oh, don’t worry, we can go _all_ night.”

Sam ignores the rolling of his stomach, the burning in his eyes, the fingers scratching at his brain and the voice in his head. The one telling him to grab the phone, rip it out of the wall and smash his brother’s beautiful face open with it. Knock out his teeth, break that nose and turn that sinful mouth into a smear of crimson. He doesn’t know this voice, it’s not him. It’s not. _Who are you?_ he demands, but there’s no answer. The voice is quiet now. Retreated.

Dean clears his throat loudly, doesn’t bother even turning his head, just places a hand over the mouthpiece and addresses Sam with a voice void of emotion, wooden. “Take a shower Sam, you’re filthy.”

The words hit him like a slap across the face, and before he even tries to decode them, decipher their meaning, he’s running away from Dean, arms still across his chest like a shield, and slamming the bathroom door behind him.

Sam showers quickly, making sure to leave half of the motel shampoo and soap for his brother. Stands under the coldest water he can handle and scrubs himself with a washcloth until he’s pink and smelling faintly of roses. Makes sure to leave Dean a dry towel and as much hot water as possible, doesn’t make eye contact when they cross paths to trade off. Something is shifting between them, warping and changing shape. And Sam knows what he has to do, how to stop it. While he still can.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a kind of transitional chapter. More to come soon, if my brain cooperates. ;)


	7. dream a little dream of me

“He’s not _really_ your brother, is he?”

The suddenness of the question, well, more of a statement, has Sam choking on his illegally acquired beer. He coughs roughly against the back of his wrist and she smacks him on the back, laughing loudly in the already loud bar. He doesn’t bother to point out that the gesture is pointless.

“Wait, what?” Sam puts the bottle down on the table and presses the cold, wet hand to his suddenly warm cheek. He’s blushing so hard it hurts.

“Dean,” she continues, poking the ice in her drink with a straw. “He’s not your brother. I can tell.” She contorts her face in an exaggerated wink, gesturing with one hand in the general direction of the dance floor. Or more accurately the middle of the room where tables and chairs had been hastily pushed against the wall to leave room for bodies to undulate against each other to sad cowboy songs. Currently, two of those bodies belong to Dean and Janice and Sam wonders if Nicole lost the coin toss to get stuck chatting with him for the entirety of the evening. He clears his throat against the bitter bite of beer and tries again.

“Uh,” he starts, stalling, “what makes you say that?”

Nicole smiles, a real warm thing with no hint of teasing and reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Because no one looks at their brother the way you’re looking at him right now.”

Sam looks away, ducks his head and blinks against the beginnings of tears, and drains the rest of his lukewarm drink. He feels embarrassed and exposed.

Found out.

Sensing the sudden tension she squeezes his shoulder and leans in, head low and close to the table top like she’s trying to peer through his hair. “Hey, Sam? It’s okay, really. I understand.”

Sam hesitates before meeting her gaze, but finds no mocking there. She gives his shoulder another small squeeze before her hand drops away and falls into her lap. “I mean, I _really_ understand.”

When Nicole’s eyes land on Dean and Janice across the room, Janice’s arms draped loosely around Dean’s neck, head thrown back on a laugh, mouth open and eyes closed, Sam gets it. Sees the same starry eyed expression on Nicole that he sometimes feels himself making when he looks at Dean. Only her’s is tight around the edges, more longing in her endearment and almost as much devotion, and it finally clicks. Janice doesn't feel the same.

“Oh. I’m sorry I-” Sam starts but Nicole stops him with one hand, raises her glass in the other. “To loving someone more than they’ll ever know.”

Sam raises his drink to clink against hers, the empty bottle making a hollow sound. Nicole sniffs, chuckles softly to herself. “And see? Here I am, having a pity party and I’ve gone and left you without a drink. Just let me-” she stands and pushes back her chair, wobbling on her feet from more than just the alcohol. This time when she lays a hand on the top of Sam’s head, he doesn’t have it in him to pull away. She totters off to the bar and he’s left watching the back of Dean’s head, able to tell from his body language alone that he’s grinning. He feels bad for Nicole, he really does. He may have raised a glass with her but when it comes to Dean, he’s pretty sure he knows how much Sam loves him. It’s in his DNA, running through his veins, right alongside his blood.

_Same blood._

In that moment, Sam is suddenly struck by the notion that he's actually happy. He watches the easy sway of Dean’s hips, the relaxed slope of his shoulders as he raises an arm to spin Janice in their dance. He’s hit full force with how much he loves Dean, and how happy he is that he stole him away in the middle of the night. Inspired, he pats his pockets for a pen, finding the one Dean stole from the first motel they had stayed in. Remembers how Dean had shoved it down the back of his pants, chastising him loudly when Sam squealed in surprise. “Sam Winchester, stealing pens? I know _I_ didn’t raise you that way.” He chuckles fondly, grabs the paper placemat in front of him, _He’s Not Here_ scrawled in slanted handwriting font, and flips it over to the clean side. He addresses it as legibly as possible with the date, _Dear Dad_ and then starts to write. He wants to tell him how well they’re doing, how Dean is opening right up. Blooming like a goddamn flower but not in those words. No, he tells him how Dean takes charge, how he’s laughing and dancing and singing and alive. So very alive. He leaves out the bad parts, the scary parts, and focuses on the positive. He signs his name with a flourish and leaves a spot for Dean to sign his own later. Satisfied, lit up inside with the warmth of his good deed, he folds the paper into fourths, then folds that in half and squeezes it into his pant’s pocket for later.  He is still caught up in a feeling like floating when Nicole returns, holds out what is almost certainly not a beer. The clear liquid sloshes up the side of the glass to kiss the lime wedge balanced there, and Sam takes it with slippery fingers.

“Uh, what kind of beer is this?” Sam asks, drink held under his nose for a sniff.

“The tequila kind. Now, no arguing. Drink!”

Her tone leaves no room for argument so he raises the glass along with her, holds his breath and knocks the shot back, chasing it quickly with the lime wedge. He swallows convulsively a few times until he’s sure it’s going to stay put in his stomach where it belongs. Slides his watery eyes over to her and she laughs loudly at the sight of his face.

“First time drinking tequila, huh?”

“First time doing a shot, actually.”

“Oh, you sweet child.” She pinches his cheek again, and he finds it feels oddly numb.

“We should have more of these.” The volume of his own voice surprises him, but Nicole just laughs again. Her cheeks rosy and round, eyes softened and glassy. She pats the side of his face with one clammy palm and leans in conspiratorially. “I like how you think.” She’s up and off before Sam can offer to buy a round, and he’s really okay with that.

Nicole’s back in just a few short minutes and she has four drinks pinned together in two hands.

Sam frowns, one hand going up to feel at his forehead, between his eyebrows. He traces his fingers over the wrinkles there, the ones Dean usually pushes his thumb into when Sam is frustrated, or worried.

_Stop thinking so hard, Sammy, you’ll break something._

“Nicole, I don’t think I can handle two more shots.”

But she just nods her head knowingly, almost drops the glasses onto the table top. One hits hard and splashes precious liquor over Sam’s hands, alcohol cold.

“Oh, Sam. These are _all_ for you.” She lines up the drinks and Sam huffs a laugh in disbelief, is still grinning when he looks over to Dean, eager to pass one or two of the shots onto him. The smile quickly drops off his face when he catches the profile of them together, so close their shadows meld into one. The proximity of Dean and Janice’s bodies are those of people that don’t plan on calling it an early night. His right hand is sunk into her hair, almost completely swallowed up like he’s cradling her skull and Sam’s stomach twists painfully. It’s then that the jukebox quiets for a moment, and he listens to the clunk and scratch as a new record is loaded up. The song starts and he’s transfixed, watching Dean in his slow sway.

_Stars shining bright above you._

Dean’s eyes fall on him as he looks over her shoulder, sparkling like moonlight on the surface of a midnight lake.

_Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you. Birds singing in the sycamore trees._

Dean pulls her hair back from her shoulder and rests his chin there. With heavy lidded eyes he licks his lips suggestively and mouths the next line along with Mama Cass.

_Dream a little dream of me._

Sam closes his eyes when his vision starts to blur, sees cold dark water and Dean’s head disappearing just below the surface.

_But we gotta go down, down, down._

Sam turns back in his chair so sharply, two legs tip off the floor and clatter back down noisily. He takes a deep calming breath and tries to push the image out of his brain. Afraid to close his eyes in case it’s still there, waiting for him. He plasters a smile across his face and picks up the glass with shaky fingers.

“Nicole, have I ever told you that I love a challenge?”

She grins back at him, claps her hands beneath her chin. Shouts her answer back just as the warmth of the first shot hits his stomach.

“Me, too.”

Then the second one. Then the third. His mouth waters at the sight of the final shot, a violent chill racking his body. Nicole reaches for it without asking, quickly downs it like falling on a grenade. “Wow, Sammy,” she shudders and raises the back of her wrist to her mouth, “didn’t think you had it in you.”

He grimaces at the nickname and raises his arm, pointing over in the general vicinity of dance floor. “Hey, only _he_ gets to call me that.” He half turns in his seat and when his brain catches up to his eyes he chokes on the end of his sentence. Janice and Dean have stopped dancing, stopped twirling and Dean has his face inches from hers, both hands disappeared into her thick dark hair. Sam rubs his eyes and squints because it looks like...it can’t be, could he be? Is he fucking kissing her? Sam’s up and across the room before he even registers that he’s moving, his chair flung out behind him, knocking into the table and sending shot glasses crashing to the floor. He meets Dean’s eyes for one frozen moment and then he’s got a hand on Janice’s shoulder, wrenching her backwards with all his strength, only mildly concerned when he hears the thud of her hitting the floor. His hands are on Dean next, and he pushes at his chest with both hands, putting all of his weight in it so Dean stumbles backwards into the wall. Dean isn’t speaking, isn’t doing anything but staring, the white of his eyes showing all around the iris and even though Sam has to look up to see him, he’s still got him pinned with his gaze. He’s got Dean boxed in against the wall, his brother’s eyes rolling like a wild animal. Sam can hear things happening behind him, the girls’ voices growing louder, the song still playing, mocking him.

_But in your dreams, whatever they be._

 

_Dream a little dream of me._

 

He only closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, he’s on the floor. His left ear is throbbing and when he lifts his hand to that side of his face, it’s hot to the touch. He’s staring at his shoes, toes pointed to the ceiling as they sway back in forth in his line of sight, vision swimming.

Dean hit him.

Punched him. Right in the face, clipped his ear and left it ringing. He wants to say it’s the sharp pain that brings tears to his eyes, but he’s pretty sure he’s lying to himself. Because when he can make out Dean’s face through his tears he sees confusion there, and anger. And his stomach twists.

“Dean?” It’s all he can get out, all he can think of when he feels hands on him. Nicole slips her arms under his and tries, without success, to haul him up. Sam feels far away from himself, out of body, and barely registers her tugging on his shirt sleeves, calling his name.

“Sam. Sam! C’mon get up.”

Sam’s dead weight, still staring at Dean where he still stands towering over him, through the neon lights swimming in his tears. He doesn’t bother to wipe them, just scrunches his eyes up and lets them fall away. He’s stuck in time, just kind of floating in space where the air is sharp and cold all of a sudden. His voice is softer when he speaks, warbled in his own ears like it’s coming from under water. “Dean?”

Nicole grows more insistent, grabs him by the collar of his jacket and struggles to pull him backwards, sliding him across the sticky floor. Towards the door, away from Dean. “Please, we have to go. Janice called the police and they’ll be here any minute.”

Sam jolts when he hears the word, it shoots through all the confusion and right to the front of his brain.

_No._

“No!” His wail cancels out any other noise around him, and the room falls silent. He can feel himself losing control, wild eyed, heart pounding in his throat, muscles burning with battery acid screaming _go. run!_

“No. You can’t! You don’t even know us, you don’t even _know_.” He flails wildly and breaks her grasp, half turns to look back at the girls. Nicole is standing frozen, one hand extended towards him, Janice a statue by her side, face closed down and hurt. Both with tears in their eyes. Nicole raises her hand up to the side of her face and flinches like she’s been hit, too.

“Sam, he hit you.”

Sam just shakes his head, huffs out a laugh that turns into a cough, leaves his throat raw and head pounding. Dean is on him in a second, pulling him up in strong arms, pulling Sam’s back to his chest, with one hand around his waist and the other over his heart. Sam wishes suddenly that his brother had claws. Big long black talons like the Wolfman in the Midnight Monster Madness movies. That he would just claw Sam open and crawl inside, where it’s safe and warm. Because Dean’s not safe. They’re coming, and it’s his fault.

“No. No cops, you stupid bitch. Who do you think you _are_ , huh? You don’t know us...you don’t know!”

He’s being hauled backwards, towards the door, but this time Dean has him, so he’s okay, It’s gonna be okay, they just have to go. They have to get in the car and keep moving away from this town, this bar, these people that just don’t get it.

_Anywhere but here._

There are black spots dancing across his vision and his ear is ringing worse than ever. He puts one his hands over Dean’s and tries to speak to him, but his tongue is heavy in his mouth and he’s so dizzy. His vision goes completely black just as Dean backs them through the side door, the outside air cold and damp against his hot face. He can hear Dean speaking softly, under his breath, repeating the same thing over and over but he can’t be sure if he’s speaking to Sam or to himself. He just barely makes out the words and it’s the last thing he hears before he lets go, and quietly slips into unconsciousness.

“Who are you?”

 

*

 

He wakes up going a million miles per hour, the car rocking from side to side like flying. It’s so dark that Sam can’t tell where the road ends and the night begins. Staring out the window is like looking into a mirror, and he can see Dean behind him, lit up blue by the clock display. He sits up in the seat and his head screams at him, blinding pain like lightning bolts in his temple and he groans. He opens his mouth to speak but is overcome by nausea, swallows a few times and feels the familiar burn of tequila rising up his throat. When he’s confident he’s not gonna puke, he speaks.

“Dean?”

He can see Dean’s shoulders hunch up, his hands tighten on the steering wheel. Hands that look swollen with dark knuckles, blood turned black and blue by moonlight. He’s about to say his name again when Dean’s answers him.

“You passed out.” Still facing forward, Dean leans forward to grab a water bottle near his feet and tosses it into Sam’s lap. “I got you in the car, went to the room and got our stuff, and got the fuck outta dodge.”

Sam gets himself mostly upright and peers in the back seat at their bags. Moving turns out to be a bad plan so he rests back and yawns, his jaw cracking painfully.

“You freaked, Sam. You flipped out and you coulda-” he cuts himself off, looks over at Sam with a shuttered expression. “You could have hurt yourself, Sammy.”

Sam just looks back at him, head still fuzzy from the drink and the punch. He wonders if maybe he has a concussion.

“You kissed her.” He feels eerily calm, serene. Like his head isn’t connected to his body, like the rage that flowed through him has had its strings cut. So now he’s just limp with exhaustion and defeat.

Dean is shaking his head, but more in disbelief than denial. “Yeah, I did.” Sam doesn’t know if he expected him to deny it or he had hoped his eyes were playing tricks on him, but the admission leaves him cold, hollowed out. He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until Dean is pulling the car over, calling his name over and over. “Sam, Sammy, please, stop crying.”  
Sam turns himself in the bench seat until he had his back against the door. He takes a deep, shaking breath and flinches at the answering ache in his temple.

“Dean, why would you do that? I mean, why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Not good enough.”

“Fuck, Sam. I...I don’t have a good answer.”

“Well, try.”

Dean half turns towards him, makes a terrible sound like a wounded animal when passing headlights illuminates Sam’s face. He turns back, dropping his head down against the steering wheel.

“I’m so sorry, Sam, so fucking sorry.” He knocks his head against the unforgiving wheel between every word, the keys rattling in the ignition. “I. Fucking. Hit. You.”

Sam reaches out, tried to get his hand between Dean’s head and the hard surface but he lashes out, snagging his wrist and pulling Sam towards him. “Lemme see your face. Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

His fingers dance lightly over Sam’s cheek, soft enough to tickle more than sting, and Sam tries to pull away. “Dean, it’s fine, not even bleedin’, just, stop.” Dean takes his hands back, clenches them into fists to rest in his lap. He’s rocking slightly, front to back, rubbing his knuckles back and forth on his jeans and Sam watches the smears darken as he reopens wounds. His voice is so soft that Sam has to crawl over the seat to him to make out what he’s saying.

“Sometimes, I feel like I’m not in my body, like I’m there, but I don’t have control. I’m just letting things happen.”

Sam nods for him to go on, too afraid to speak and break the spell.

“I remember, what I’m good for, all I’m good for.” He drops his head, looks down at his hands in his lap, twists his wrists and grinds raw flesh into denim. His voice wavers, but he goes on. “Mom used to tell me it was lucky I was so pretty, on account of me being so stupid.”

“Dean?” Sam feels lost, sinking down a dark hole, because Dean’s still talking.

“Dad never told you what happened, the day she left?”

Sam shakes his head violently, no. He hadn’t. They never discussed that day. And it was long enough ago that it only appeared like slivers of dreams in Sam’s own memory. He had only been eight years old, and sheltered from most of it. Dean turns the key in the ignition and the car shudders to sleep. The silence is broken by a car that sails past through the darkness, rear lights fading as they are swallowed up in the oppressive night.

“Mom said I made things hard on her. Said I was like talking to a brick wall. And when she got really mad, she, uh. She’d lock me in the closet.” He looks away, embarrassed.

Sam swallows, rubs at his left temple and tries to press into the sore spot. “Wait, what?”

“You know, the closet under the stairs? She used to tell me she couldn’t concentrate when I was looking at her _like that_. Never figured out what that meant, really.”

Sam is right up next to him now, left leg tucked under himself, the other stretched out, foot resting next to Dean’s on the floor. He puts his hands on top of his brother’s to still them, hears Dean’s sharp intake of breath.

“Dean.” Sam feels the burn behind his eyes, struggles to keep his voice from shaking. “Dean, how come no one told me? How did I not know?”

Dean huffs out a laugh, sandwiches one of Sam’s hands in his own. “I’m real good at being quiet.”

Sam shudders, a full body chill that sets him off crying again. Dean shushes him. Sam pulls Dean’s hands up to inspect them closer. “Did, did Dad know?”

“He caught her doing it a couple times. She always promised she wouldn’t do it again. I-” Dean chokes, tears roll off his chin and onto the front of his shirt. “I used to beg Dad not to get mad. Told him it was my fault. But Dad, you know how he is. Strong silent type and all that. He never said anything to me about it. But his eyes, Sam. They used to look so dark. Like deep and dark and he would walk away like he couldn’t stand to look at me.”

“Dean, it wasn’t you.”

“The night she left, they had another fight about it. I couldn’t hear everything they were talking about, except. Mom just kept saying that I wasn’t right. That someone had taken the real one away when she was asleep and I was an imposter. She said I wasn’t real.”

“Jesus christ.”

“Sam, maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. You don’t have to know, this ain't about you.”

Dean’s eyes wander, focused on some point in the distance and Sam reaches for the bandana tied around his wrist to hide his wound. He grabs both ends and tightens sharply until Dean gasps, blinking rapidly as he comes back to himself.

“You can’t protect me from this, Dean. Please.”

Dean takes back his hands, wipes his eyes quickly and faces forward. His eyes scanning the distance in front of them like he’s seeing the memories played out on the dark canvass of the night sky.

“That night, when they started yelling, I couldn’t take it. So I ran off, hid in my closet. Mom came looking for me, knew right where I’d be. She got down on her hands and knees, whispered through the crack under the door. She told me she was leaving. Leaving to find the _real_ Dean.” Sam grabs the water bottle from beside him and twists the top on and off, keeping his restless hands busy. “She said she was gonna go find him and bring him back. And that I better be gone by then. But, she never came back. And Dad, Dad knows why.”

Dean jerks suddenly, like waking up from a bad dream, his body jolting and his hands coming down hard on the steering wheel. He turns his tear stained face towards Sam, face contorted in intense pain.

“Sammy, Mom left because of me.”

Sam swallows, realizes he’s shaking. Takes Dean’s hands in his and brings them to his mouth, kissing his bloodied knuckles softly. “Dean, what did you do?”

“Hurt you, Sam. I hurt you and I needed to pay. ‘s fine, I deserve a lot worse.” Sam just shakes his head, presses his tongue into the scrapes, seeking out little pieces of debris and sucking them into his mouth to spit at the floor.  
“No, Dean, you don’t. Love you. Love you so much.”

Dean whines softly in the back of his throat, his thighs spreading unconsciously, hips shifting, squeaking against the vinyl seats. Sam pauses, suddenly remembers what he has in his pocket. Ignores Dean’s grumbles of protest long enough to reach quickly and pull out the letter, hands it over to Dean expectantly.

“What’s this?” Dean turns the paper over, looking for a name or significant markings. Sam just inhales deeply and blows a long, slow breath out of his nose.

“Just open it, Dean. If you wanna know what I really think of you. Open it.”

With trembling fingers he slowly unfolds it, careful not to tear. Leaning forward to catch the light from the dashboard he reads slowly, deliberately. Sam knows when he’s finished when the first tear rolls down, off his chin and onto the paper.

“Sammy, this isn’t me.” Chin wobbling, eyes shiny wet in the moonlight, Dean’s refusing to believe it.

“That _is_ you Dean. Everything, all of it. You’re everything that matters. Always been that way.” Dean looks back down at the letter, reading it again like the words may have moved around the paper and changed. After a moment he sniffs, puts on his biggest smile and with eyes still dripping down his face he dives forward, catching Sam’s mouth with his. He presses his lips firmly, salty wet and warm, before opening them to sweep his tongue inside. Sam kisses back, mixing their tears and spit and the remnants of Dean’s blood between them. Bonded in blood, bound together, forever.

When Dean finally pulls back Sam feels stunned, breathless. He looks up at his brother’s shadowy face, lips swollen to match his knuckles and he feels more uncontrollable tears burn behind his eyes. His beautiful brother. _His._

Dean clears his throat, his smile morphing into his most self satisfied smirk. “Jeez Sammy, you _really_ love me.”

Sam laughs, punches Dean in the shoulder, hard. Still chuckling, Dean dodges the second hit, cracking his elbow into the door in the process. “Ow! Seriously though,” Dean rubs at his funny bone, wincing, “it’s embarrassing.”

Sam laughs, sucks in a big breath choking on swallowed tears and laughs some more. “You’re such a jerk.”

“I know.” Dean gestures with one hand, mimes writing his name across the space between them until Sam pulls the pen out of his pocket and hands it over. Dean presses pen to paper, signs his name oh-so-carefully before carefully folding the paper back up and handing both letter and pen back to Sam.

“Listen, Sammy-boy. This night has not gone as planned.”

“Nope. No.”

“Right. So whaddya say you let me take you somewhere else? Make it up to you.”

“I gotta better idea. Just drive.” Sam slides back over to his side of the seat, glancing out the window. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Sam?”

“You trust me, Dean?”

“Sure. Always.”

“Then drive.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite version of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajwnmkEqYpo) song. Ever.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to and lovingly beta'd by the wonderful and talented [silver9mm](http://archiveofourown.org/users/silver9mm/pseuds/silver9mm)  
> You are a gift <3  
> Based on her prompt of the song [Desperately Wanting - Better Than Ezra](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdzegXdk4Ak)  
> -  
> When they pumped out your guts  
> Filled you full of those pills  
> You were never quite right  
> Deserving all the chills  
> They say the worst is over  
> Kicked it over and ran  
> Then they ask what went wrong  
> When they turn you on again  
> They turn you on again.
> 
> I remember running through the wet grass  
> Falling a step behind  
> Both of us never tiring  
> Desperately wanting


End file.
